A Play With Words
by XER9AF
Summary: If one were to fall into the Naruto world, what would it really be like? One thing I know for sure, it wouldn't be easy. A girl who falls into the world without the benefit of knowing anything about Naruto faces the task of surviving. Suspicious shadow walking assassins? Check. Death Gods in a cat mask? Check. Accidental google translate in your own brain...check. OC. Self-Insert
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

An Earthquake, A Death God and A New World

_Italics will = Japanese until stated otherwise_

If there's one thing I fear the most, it is losing my family. I may have a crippling fear of snakes, clowns and spiders, but what I truly fear is finding myself alone in the world without my loved ones. It's unfortunate for me that I lost my family. What's really tragic is that I lost my world as well.

Date: May 16th 2012

It was a bright, beautiful sunny day. A rarity in Seattle, but one that was fully appreciated and enjoyed by the whole population. It's usually overcast in Seattle, so the sun we do get is never taken for granted. On that day, my parents and I decided to take a walk outsides. We took pleasure in soaking up the sun rays and smelling the scent of warmth and flowers. The ground was faintly moist from the morning dew and a light breeze kept us from overheating. Overall, it was a perfect Seattle day and we Seattleites were as happy as pie.

It was a very normal, and pleasant day. Who knew that day would come to be known as 5/16 - a name taken after a date is never a good sign as it often alludes to tragedies such as 9/11. At that time, I was eighteen years old and a senior at a local high school with less then a month till graduation. Recently, I often felt episodes of nostalgia and melancholy as I realized that I would be leaving my parents soon. It was hard for me to imagine my life without them, I would miss them, I was sure of that. For them my departure was heartbreaking because I was their only child. As a result, I tried to spend my free time with them, so I indulged them with a walk outside even though my true desire was to sit at a piano and just play.

That day, I spotted a strange looking butterfly in the distance. It was a shocking orange color and I was instantly intrigued, so I sped up my pace and overtook my parents. When I was, perhaps, about ten feet in front of them, the ground began to roll.

It was as if the earth beneath my feet was liquid the way it was flowing up and down. I soon lost my balance and fell to my hands and feet, both terrified and disconcerted. For some unfathomable reason, perhaps in my terror, I got it into my head to try and stop the movement under me, so I clutched the pavement with my hands and pushed down as if my strength could still the bucking earth.

My mom screamed, "Fay! Tree!" And my head whipped up. For a minute I was distracted by my wavy black hair in my face before my large green eyes widened in shock. The last thing I remembered was a huge evergreen tree groaning before smashing down at me.

x

I woke up. This alone I thought was a miracle. But my relief was short lasting as I was soon bombarded by terrible pressure and emptiness. It was as if my whole body was drained of my blood. It was as if the weight of the world was crushing me. Somehow my limbs were screaming in pain, and it felt as if my veins were on fire. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think. Pathetically, I just screamed weakly and cried.

It was then that a masked figure materialized at my side. He wore strange black clothes with a gray vest and guards. Most of all, I took notice of his cat shaped bone white mask. At that moment, I thought that the God of Death had come to take me away. Though I was surprised by the lack of scythe, somehow his presence was soothing.

Weakly, I eyed the small strange knife type weapon in his hand, and smiled. The pain was finally going to go away. But the man/God, whoever he was, just stared at me. I could faintly make out the black of his eyes through the eyeholes. He took a step towards me, hesitated, then finally crouched down at my side. With a sudden flick of his hand, the knife was gone. And gently, he picked me up into his arms.

Then I was flying. Then I blacked out again.

x

Silence and hunger was what I woke up to. For a minute, I desperately kept my eyes closed in an attempt to stay asleep, the last time I'd woken up had been torture, so I was too scared to face it again. Within a few minutes, I slowly came to realize that the crushing burning pain had faded to a dull throb. My limbs still felt strange though. They felt unusually warm as if my blood had been replaced with lukewarm syrup. It wasn't a bad feeling, comforting in fact, but it unnerved me nevertheless.

Hesitantly, I opened my eyes, and I suspect that my pupils retracted to pinpricks in my green eyes as the harsh light of the room blinded me. With a groan, I shut them again, and brought up one arm to lay across my pained eyes. I thought that the strange feeling in my arms would make my limbs heavy and difficult to move, but I felt lighter then ever. It was as if my arm was as light as a feather - as if I was floating in water, but without the resistance.

A door clanged open, and though I wanted to hide behind my eyelids and forearm forever, I carefully opened my eyes and gingerly sat up. It wasn't only my arm that was easy to move, my torso felt light as well, and I also could feel the strange warm feeling flowing throughout my upper body. I wondered if it was the warmth that made me light.

The first thing I noticed was that I was sitting on a simple cot in a bland white room. The room (cell, I realized) was bare of all other accessories but for a small wooden chair at my bedside. There wasn't even a window. I next took note of the four men who had entered my room.

One was an old man wearing a strange white and red outfit. There was also a perplexingly unfashionable hat perched on his head. He held a pipe in his hand and puffed thoughtfully as he observed me. I was strangely reminded of Gandalf. Next was a tall blond haired man who wore his hair in a high ponytail. I wasn't sure what I thought of him, his blue eyes were unnerving. If I was keeping to the 'Lord of the Rings' theme, he would be Legolas. The next man I noticed was a young man with light blue...BLUE...hair. He wore some sort of loose white uniform. It too was very unflattering. He was...well, he could be Frodo I suppose. Finally, the last man that entered was the masked Death God who had saved me. Now that I wasn't delirious, I felt myself tense in fear at the numerous weapons on his person. There was some sort of short sword on his back, and I was sure that his pouch held many sharp objects. Aragorn...but 10 times more scary.

The Old Man started towards me and the others followed behind him. I thought the Old Man might sit on the chair at my bedside, but instead he stood towering above me. He looked down at me with blank evaluating eyes. Despite myself, I clenched my fingers into the thin white sheets over me, and curled into myself defensively. My heart thumped in fear.

"_Now who might you be?_" he asked.

I couldn't understand him. Instantly, I recognized the language as Japanese. My mom and I had watched enough foreign films for me to recognize the sounds. I knew how to speak four languages. English, Spanish, French and Mandarin. Actually, I'd always fancied myself as a linguist of some sorts. Egoistical, I know. Both my parents could speak English and it was my native language, hence how I could speak English. My mother could speak Spanish, and my father could speak French, that's where I learned the languages. Mandarin was a language I learned on my own. I'd requested my parents for lessons after Chinese New Year. The free money given out in the little red envelopes had fascinated me. I was actually fluent in Mandarin, having started to learn it since the age of five. However, Japanese was not a language I had even thought of learning. I regretted it greatly.

"I'm sorry. I can't speak Japanese. English? Do you know English?" The four men traded glances with each other when I asked them if they could speak in English.

"_You can not understand me."_ The Old Man stated something with a sigh. He was looking at me curiously though.

"_You're useless then, I must kill you I suppose."_

I didn't know what he said, but he looked at me with expectant eyes. I just started at him blankly, utterly lost and confused. "I'm sorry...what was that?" I repeated helplessly.

"_It seems that she really can't understand us Hokage-sama."_ The Blond Man spoke.

"_Yes, it seems so. I thought she would show a reaction if I threatened her with death...however."_

"_She could be a skilled actor." _The Blue Haired Man spoke for the first time.

"_Perhaps."_

"_Tell me again how you found her?"_ The Blond Man spoke again.

Death God shifted before speaking towards the Blond Man. _"I heard her sounds of distress while on my patrols of the village. She was collapsed on the ground in training ground 9 and I thought she was a civilian at first as I could neither see a hitai-ate nor sense chakra from her. However, I then realized I couldn't sense any chakra from her **at all**. It was my belief initially that she was a skilled kunoichi with the ability to mask her chakra, but her pain seemed genuine so I brought her to the hospital."_

The Old Man turned to the Blue Haired Man. "_Is it true then? She had no chakra?"_

"_Yes Hokage-sama. When ANBU-san brought the girl to me, I diagnosed her and found that amazingly, she truly had no chakra. She should have already been dead! Her chakra channels were collapsing from her condition and her core was absolutely empty. I knew that if she did not receive a chakra transfusion, her heart would collapse within minutes so I made the decision for immediate transfusion. Her body accepted the chakra well, and she soon fell into a healing sleep where she has been for the last six days before the monitoring seals around the cell picked up on her movement."_

"_Inoichi. It'll have to be you then. The mind has no language after all."_ The Old Man said, turning to address the Blond.

The Blond Man nodded curtly at the Old Man before turning towards me. I really, really didn't like the cold bland look on his face as he approached. His hands raised and to my utter embarrassment, I flinched, curling even further into myself. Blond man's eyes softened minutely I noticed. He was saying something to me, I could tell from his lips, but I was so scared that I couldn't even make out the sounds. There was only a panicked ringing in my ears as he gently cupped my small face with one hand. His large coarse hand completely engulfed a whole half of my face, and I think even the blond man was surprised by how small I actually was.

I knew that at a tiny five foot zero I looked petite and delicate. I also knew that my large green eyes and my relatively pretty face, framed by wavy black hair, looked sweet and fragile. At the time I thought that I could perhaps use my naturally innocent looks to gain sympathy from the four strangers.

The Blond Man pulled my face to look at his and then our eyes met. At first, nothing happened, then I suddenly became very aware of a lump in my mind. I know that's a bad description but that's all I can say. It started out as a foreign bump then it spread suddenly and painfully. The warmth that flowed in me began to boil without warning. It felt as if I was being cooked from the inside. I screamed and screamed and I was only vaguely aware of the Blond Man hastily pulling away from me. His expression was one of shock and surprise. He firmly held my thrashing body down as I was liable to fall off the bed any second.

The pain gradually, too gradually, started to fade away as the seconds went by. And at last, the terrible pain dropped to a dull throb before finally fading away completely. I realized then that there were tears streaming down my face and that sometime during my fit I had wet myself. I was utterly mortified.

I noticed that the Blond Man, the Old Man, and the Blue Haired Man all looked stricken. I couldn't tell what Death God was feeling due to his mask. The Blond Man gave me an apologetic look, and stepped slowly away from me, his hands held out in a gesture of peace.

The Blue Haired man took his place and gently laid his hands on my head and his hands started to glow green. I knew then and there that this wasn't my world.

x

**A/N: Thank you for reading. I would like critical criticism so please feel free to point out anything. However, please no outright flames or trolling. I haven't read/watched Naruto in quite a while. Though I do keep up with the manga, I have forgotten a lot of the earlier plots. If I make any mistakes, please feel free to mention it.**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

An Abnormal Core

_Italics = Japanese unless stated otherwise_

It'd been about 2 hours since I had my fit, and during that time, I had been aware of two very important things. One: I got a blissful shower and a change of clothes, and two: I was moved to a normal looking hospital room.

Before my change of location, the four men had discussed among each other for about ten minutes.

[Flashback]

Blue Haired Man, who I've figured is some sort of medical person, said, _"Inoichi-San, you're aware that the Yamanaka techniques are forbidden on infants, yes?" _He glanced in my direction with a perplexed expression on his face. I inferred by then that I was the topic of their discussion.

"_Yes...You don't mean that...!" _Blond Haired Man exclaimed, staring at me as if I had suddenly grown a second head.

Blue Haired Man nodded his head. "_It seems so. As chakra pathways in newborns are extremely fragile and delicate, the invasion by the Yamanaka Techniques can cause severe pain and damage. It seems it is the same case with this girl."_ All four men turned towards me. I shifted under their suspicious gaze.

"_She's either under a year old, or it truly is the first time chakra was introduced into her system. Both highly unlikely..." _

"_What does that mean for our interrogation?"_ Asked the Old Man slowly, a furrow in his brows. I really hoped they weren't planning on trying whatever they did to me again.

"_We'll have to wait three weeks before Yamanaka-san can try again. That should be enough time for her chakra channels to grow strong enough to accept the invasion. It's strange though..."_

"_What?"_ Death God asked.

"_When I performed a chakra transfusion on her, I seemed to have unlocked her chakra core. It's barely filling up, but the core itself is **growing**. It's as if she's an overgrown infant who was born with a chakra core the size of a fully grown adult. Chakra cores grow rapidly for the first two years of a child's life and by the time they are three, their cores are about 15 times larger. In her case, even though her chakra core is as large and fully developed as that of a grown adult, her core is growing at the rate of a child's."_

"_Does that mean she's an infant? Some sort of human experiment?" _Asked The Old Man sharply. I shrank away from the sudden hostile aura emitted from him.

"_Orochimaru." _The Blond Man muttered to himself.

"_No. Her cells tells me that she is approximately eighteen years of age. I believe...I believe that somehow she has been living with an empty core for the first eighteen years of her life."_

The Blond Man's face twisted into one of confusion. _"That's not possible. No one can survive without chakra."_

"_And there lies the mystery."_ sighed The Old Man.

Death God tensed suddenly. _"That means that in three years, her chakra levels could be 15 times that of a normal human."_

There was tense silence.

"_15 times...that's just shy of the One-Tailed Demon." _Blond Haired Man's face paled.

"_Currently, her chakra levels are too low to be any sort of threat. Her cores large, but she has barely any chakra, though I suspect that it'll start filling up if she's trained. Currently, her muscles are weak, and her reflexes are poor. What shall be done Hokage-sama?"_

Once again, silence. The Old Man was staring at me thoughtfully. He seemed to look me up and down and I was suddenly embarrassed by my predicament. I wore only a open back hospital gown. I was dirty and smelled of urine from my accident. My hair was a stringy mess, and I was sure that my face was pale from stress and fear. I looked both pathetic and depressingly sad.

"_Give her time in the bathroom, a change of clothes and transfer her to a standard hospital room. We'll observe her for now. I'll make my final decision in three weeks after she heals."_

"Hai!" the three men responded all together, startling me.

[End Flashback]

My new room was nice I suppose. Instead of a dull flat cot, there was a comfortable bed. I even had a small bedside table, a couple of chairs and even a large window with a view outside. Best of all, there was a connecting bathroom.

The window made me wonder if they'd concluded that I wasn't a threat anymore, but then I remembered that the Old Man had muttered something before slamming his hand on the floor. It was bizarre; out of nowhere, black ink appeared from the base of his palm and scrawled some sort of writing in the shape of a web. The floor, windows, walls and door had glowed red for a split second before returning back to normal. All that remained was the strange runic circle on the ground. I swore that everyone here was a mage or mutant of some sort.

After that, they left me alone for quite a while. It was...boring. There was no T.V. nor any books, so I stood up to look outside. The window was interesting to look out of, but the view almost gave me a heart attack.

Outside proved to me once and for all that I wasn't in Kansas anymore. For one, I saw some sort of Mt. Rushmore, but the faces were definitely not U.S presidents. Another thing I noticed were the kids playing outside. Some of their hair colors alone were enough to make me stare, but the games they played was what really surprised me. They stabbed each other with fake knives - the same kind Death God had - and flung cardboard throwing stars at each other with chilling accuracy. However, what really almost gave me a heart attack were the people in the distance flying like Japanese ninjas from roof to roof.

Then I paused as I realized what everyone was. They weren't mages or mutants, they were **ninjas**. Fricken people killing, shadow walking assassins. I wasn't even two minutes into my terrifying revelation when a knock on the door surprised me into rushing quickly back into bed. I was terrified that I would be punished for moving around.

I barely made it under the sheets when the door was opened and in walked four people: three preteens and one adult. They were definitely a sight to see. The adult was masked and there was a headband covering his left eye. His hair was a silvery gray and stuck up as if he was hanging upside down. It made me want to attack him with a comb.

There was a girl with long pink hair in a bright red outfit. She walked in quietly while observing me with wide seafoam green eyes. A boy wearing a blindingly orange outfit with messy blond hair and bright blue eyes sauntered in with his hands behind his head. Finally, a dark haired, dark eyed boy in a (thank god) practical blue shirt and white pants concluded the small procession of strangers.

I stared at them completely flabbergasted. The strangers stared right back.

With a hum, the adult reached into a pouch and pulled out a slim orange book. He then proceeded to completely ignore me and just read.

The blond boy's eyes narrowed to slits as he edged closer to my side. He was scrutinizing me I realized. Finally, he suddenly asked in a loud vibrant voice, "_I am your father. Your face is purple. I'm pregnant. Can I tickle you."_ I blinked at him, uncomprehending.

"_Huh. She really can't understand us."_ The Blond boy stated as he observed me curiously.

I saw the Pink girl twitch and a vein throb in her forehead before she slapped the blond on the back of the head.

"_You idiot!"_ She hissed.

"_Ow! Sakura-chan!" _Blond whined.

"_Loser_"

"_Shut up bastard!"_

"_Not in front of the patient you guys."_

The Adult just giggled quietly to himself before turning a page in his book.

My women senses tingled as I observed the book. It was erotica...I just knew it. Then I was suddenly struck with an epiphany. I clapped my hands together and let out a small, "Aha!" An action that gained the attention of the strangers.

I blushed at their sudden curious gazes before getting down to business. Raising my hands, I mimed myself writing. The girl's eyes brightened, and quickly she reached into her pouch and pulled out a small scroll and pencil.

With a small smile of thanks, I reached for the scroll and pencil, and I noticed that Sakura stared intently at my hands. Why, I didn't know. My hands were perfectly normal. Sure, they may be tiny, but all five fingers were there.

Unfurling the scroll, I gingerly wrote the chinese character for 'name'. I knew that the Japanese language used Chinese characters, which they called kanji, in their writing system. With luck, I may be able to get my basic meanings across.

The Pink girl's expression brightened as she saw my kanji. Pointing to herself, she stated clearly, "Sakura." I finally had a name. Sakura.

Sakura pointed to the brooding boy. "Sasuke." I dutifully repeated after her. The Blond suddenly gave a shout of excitement and eagerly jabbed a thumb towards himself as he stated boldly, "Naruto!" To his delight, I repeated his name. Finally, the adult looked up from his book to briefly say, "Kakashi" before turning back to his reading.

So, I knew four people now. Sakura, Sasuke, Naruto and Kakashi. For some reason, tears welled up in my eyes. Shamefaced, I quickly wiped them away as I tearfully stated with a wavering smile, "Fay".

Naruto's face scrunched up in confusion as he fumbled on his pronunciation of my name.

"Fei?" Asked Sakura.

I nodded emphatically. Knowing that in Japan they stated last names first, I replied, "Jones, Fay."

Sasuke frowned at my name. It was clear that they thought my name to be very weird. "Jonzu Fei?" he asked. I nodded.

The three looked at each other before turning back to me.

"Uzumaki Naruto!"

"Haruno Sakura."

"Uchiha Sasuke."

As one, they pointed at Kakashi and declared, "Hatake Kakashi." Said man raised two fingers. "Yo."

These people, I decided were very strange, but for some strange reason, they were very comforting. Maybe it was because they didn't stare at me with wary cold eyes. Maybe it was because they seemed so cheerful and young, I don't know.

We didn't do much after that. Kakashi continued to read, while Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura ran up and down the the hospital wall outside my window. Yes. They could walk on walls. By then, I was resigned to the loss of physics and just let myself accept all the impossibilities. They're antics were amusing nevertheless. Naruto and Sasuke were obviously racing each other, while Sakura followed behind them, rolling her eyes all the way. Truthfully, I didn't think I would ever stop being utterly fascinated by their wall walking/running skills.

After an hour and a half of this, Kakashi suddenly grew a voice box and called out, "_Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, sparring time. Naruto against Sasuke. Sakura come in and do some push ups first then spar with the winner."_

Naruto gave a whoop of excitement as he pointed a finger at Sasuke challengingly. _"Temee! I'm going to kick your butt!"_

"_Hn"_ Sasuke replied with a smirk.

To my absolute horror, they started to attack each other. I gave a cry of alarm as Sasuke flung a bunch of horribly sharp throwing stars at Naruto. Without even thinking, I rushed to the window and tried to leap out to stop the two. Because I was on the first floor I didn't worry much about getting hurt. What I had forgotten was that these children were obviously ninja in training and that the Old Man had done something to the room before he had left. One foot was barely out the window when I was shocked and thrown back onto the floor. Kakashi was suddenly at my side, looking faintly surprised and worried as he gently helped me up.

My whole body was shaking from the after effects of the harsh shock and I could barely move to the bed where I fell into a trembling heap. Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura hurried back inside, staring at me with concern.

"_What was that sensei?"_ Sakura asked.

"_A containment seal. It's programed to keep Fei inside the room."_

"_Wait...but why? She's only a patient right?"_

"_Yes...at least that is what the mission scroll stated."_ Kakashi frowned thoughtfully.

All of a sudden, there was a sharp knock on the door before it opened. Blond Haired Man walked through.

"_Inoichi."_ Kakashi greeted.

"_Kakashi. So it's your team that the Hokage assigned."_

"_Yes...I was informed that this was a normal C-rank mission. An observation mission for three weeks? No one told me that she might be a flight risk."_

_"Didn't you notice the seal on the ground?"_

_"...No...I was reading."_

Blond Haired Man rolled his eyes as he said, "_Hokage-sama will explain to you later. Have you perhaps learned her name yet?"_

"_She wrote the kanji for 'name' on a scroll she requested for. We then introduced ourselves to each other. Her name is Fei."_

"_Fei...an unusual name."_

"_A foreign name."_

The two men trailed off. A look passed between them. I got the impression that the look had conveyed far more than anyone in the room (other then the two men of course) could imagine. Some sort of code.

With a nod to Kakashi, the Blond Man left without even sparing me a glance. I was a bit miffed by this, but at the same time I was relieved. Even if it had been an accident (something I surmised) I was still terrified of the man who had caused me such pain.

When he finally left the room, I realized just how tense I had been. With a shuddering sigh, I forced myself to relax, though I was still trembling. Sakura, who had drifted nearer to me when she noticed my obvious shakings gently patted my arm in a comforting way.

I gave her a shaky smile and slowly my trembling stopped. Sasuke and Naruto were staring at me awkwardly, and I couldn't help but grin at their obvious discomfort. I wondered if I should burst into tears just to see them flustered.

With a grunt, Naruto dropped himself into one of the chairs at my bedside and pulled the scroll towards himself. Sloppily, he drew the character for 'friend'.

"Tomodachi_." _He said while pointing at the character.

"Tomodachi." I repeated after him.

Grinning cheekily, he pointed to Sakura and Sasuke. "Tomodachi." He repeated. I nodded to show him that I understood. With a bright smile, he pointed to himself. "Naruto." He then pointed at me. "Fei. Tomodachi. _So it's okay now."_ I didn't understand everything he said, but I got the gist of it.

To the horror of all the males in the room, I burst into tears. Sakura just sighed as all three males coughed awkwardly, made some sort of excuse, and then quickly escaped from my room. Naruto didn't forget to smile at me before he left though. What an adorable kid.

Sakura eyed me as my tears abated before handing me a tissue. We then sat in comfortable silence as she read a thick book, and I amused myself by sketching the Seattle skyline.

x

**A/N: Thank you for reading the second chapter. I know that the story is a bit slow right now, but I promise that it'll pick up as the setting is laid out. Criticism and questions are welcome. Please inform me of any mistakes or typos you may have noticed! Thank You.**

**Oh, and to ease concerns, Fay will not be a overpowered Mary Sue. I have plans for her chakra, but probably not like how you would think.**


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Chakra and Magic Orbs

_Italics = Japanese unless stated otherwise_

It took about half an hour for the males (aka. Naruto, Sasuke, Kakashi) to return, and to my relief, they came with FOOD! Glorious food. Of course, I then remembered my predicament.

It was a tray of rice, miso soup, seasoned spinach and a small grilled fish. My mouth practically overflowed with drool as I stared at the incoming meal intensely. The tray was set out in front of me, but I hesitated to eat. Silently, I stared mournfully at my dinner.

Face filled with confusion, Sakura urged me to eat by holding out the pair of chopsticks. However, all I did was sigh dramatically and pout as my stomach growled loudly. I was conflicted. What was I to do? You see, I'm deathly allergic to peanuts. The food they provided for me seemed peanut free, but I wasn't so sure. They may add peanut oil to the cuisine here for all I knew, and with no guarantee, I was hesitant to try the food.

However, I was starving. After a few seconds of contemplation, I gingerly pulled out the scroll from underneath the tray, and drew a peanut to the best of my ability. Then I wrote the kanji for 'death' and drew an arrow. Next to the peanut, I then drew a rough stick-figure image of a person lying dead on the ground and pointed to the peanut again.

The four crowded around my rough diagram and murmured among each other before Kakashi sniffed my food and proceeded to give me a reassuring nod. Hesitantly, I picked up some spinach and popped it warily into my mouth. Nothing happened. That little piece of food was the catalyst to my loss of reservation. I lunged for the food.

In less then five minutes, I'd completely cleaned every dish of its content. When I looked up from my meal, I was embarrassed to see Naruto staring at me with an awed expression on his face, and instantly my face flushed red as I realized just how quickly I'd eaten. I probably looked like I had inhaled my dinner.

Wordlessly, Sakura handed me a cup of water. She too was staring at me with wide eyes, and I noticed that as she handed me my drink she was careful to quickly pull her hand back... I got the feeling she thought I might pounce and try to eat her too.

"Merci." [Thank you]

Sakura blinked._"What?" _

My mouth opened, then closed as I groaned and slapped myself on the forehead. How could I not have tried to speak French, Spanish or Mandarin! Heck, they spoke Japanese, Mandarin didn't seem that far fetched. I first tried French, but from Sakura's reaction, I didn't really think it would work.

"Est-ce que vous me comprenez?" [Do you understand me?]

Blank looks from all four.

Kakashi scratched the back of his head sheepishly while replying, "_Sorry, didn't catch that."_

"Me entienden?" [Do you understand me?]

Again, blank looks. I heard Naruto try to repeat the words, but butchered the pronunciations terribly. Spanish was out.

Praying to God that Mandarin would work, I asked, "Ni ming bai le ma?" [Do you understand?]

My heart fell when I saw no comprehension.

Time passed quickly from there, and as the sun began to go down at around nine, the gang waved goodbye to me and left the room. Before they closed the door, I saw Death God settle down into a chair propped across from my room. A shiver ran down my back as I realized that he would probably be there all night long. Somehow I got the feeling that even if he couldn't see me, he would have no trouble at all knowing everything I was up to.

With nothing to do but to stare out the window and doodle on my scroll, I gave up after a couple of hours and called it a night. Sleep didn't come easily, but it did come eventually.

x

Five days passed since I woke up in this foreign world, country, planet...wherever I was.

Every morning, I woke up at the ridiculously early time of 5:00 am, even though I knew the others wouldn't arrive until 7:00 am. Because of the lack of exercise, I had too much pent up energy to feel tired. On the bright side, once the gang did arrive...always Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke first, then Kakashi two hours later, it did get interesting. Naruto and Sakura yelled angrily at the silver haired man when he arrived. I got the feeling he was purposefully always late. Well...at least he was consistent.

In the two hours before the three preteens arrived I was left to my own devices. I got the feeling that during those early hours, Death God was asleep. How I knew that, I wasn't sure. Either way, 5:00 to 7:00 am was the closest to privacy I could get. It was on my second day at the hospital that I learned of chakra.

[Flashback]

During the time we were waiting for Kakashi to arrive, Sakura, Sasuke and Naruto practiced walking around my room...without their feet touching the floor. It was an elaborate sort of game which Sakura seemed to excel in. Infinitely curious as to how they were sticking to the walls, I scrutinized their feet as they walked around horizontally. I then saw and also kind of felt the blue energy emitting from the soles of their feet.

The feeling from this strange energy felt kind of gross and sticky to me. It sort of felt like the warm syrup flowing throughout my body, but...foreign and undesirable. It took me about a half hour before I managed to build up enough courage to interrupt the training of the three ninjas.

"Sakura?" Said girl looked up at me with startled eyes.

"_Yes? Fei-san?"_

I wasn't sure how I should go about asking my question. Shrugging, I pointed to her feet and gave her a bewildered look. Sakura just looked confused.

Next I turned to my scroll and drew a quick picture of a ninja sandal with swirling energy concentrated around the sole of the feet and a little around it. Showing my drawing to Sakura, I pointed to the swirling energy with big confused eyes.

"_Oh! Chakra."_ She exclaimed. Sakura then turned to glance at her teammates who just shrugged. With a sigh, the pink-haired girl took the pencil from my hand and drew a rough diagram of a person's body. Throughout the body, she drew lines that all met together at the belly area as a swirling core.

Pointing firmly at the core, she intoned, "_Chakra."_ I dutifully repeated after her. Sakura then drew the kanjis for mind and body. She circled the two words and jabbed a finger at them while repeating 'chakra' again.

I began to understand. The energy flowing throughout my body, throughout everyone's body, was called chakra and it was a mix of spiritual and physical energy. I started to understand why the people here seemed so obsessed with being physically strong; it strengthened their chakra.

I was completely intrigued by this new revelation and came to see throughout my days that chakra could be used in spells conducted and shaped by hand signs. The body were the ninja's 'wands', their hand signs were their 'spell incantations' and the 'magic' was chakra. All in all, I was impressed.

When Kakashi arrived at 9:00 Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke began their training in earnest. Though watching them was interesting, it got rather tiresome after a while as most of their training was repeated movement. It was to form muscle memory I surmised.

Left to my own thoughts, I was hit by a wave of sorrow and homesickness. I missed my parents, my dog, my home. I missed my friends and books and piano. Fearing that I would be completely submerged in my own bleak mood, I tried to distract myself.

I wasn't sure exactly how chakra worked, but it seemed to me, at least from what I could see of the others, that chakra was malleable to your willpower and concentration. With that idea in mind I held up my hand, palm up, and focused everything I had into **willing** the sluggish syrup (chakra) within me to move. Often, something would distract me from my concentration and the connection would break apart. I would then have to start again.

After a few minutes, so powerful was my concentration that I didn't even notice when the gang stopped their practice and stared at me. Slowly, a wisp appeared, then more chakra leaked out. It threatened to just wander away from me, but I stubbornly reeled it in into a form of a glowing blue orb in my hand.

I had a magic light in my hand. I had a freaking glowing magic orb floating in my right palm. It was beautiful. Within the swirls of blue, there were streaks of blue of darker and lighter shades.

With a look of evident delight on my face, I looked up at my babysitters.

"_That's so cool Fei no nee-chan! Teach me! Teach me!" _Crowed Naruto.

However, my smile died away as I saw the look in Kakashi's eyes. Outwardly, he seemed calm enough. There was even a aura of harmless curiosity around him, but I knew what he was thinking. The tenseness around his eyes gave it away. There was a look of wary suspicion there, the same look that the Blonde Haired Man, The Healer and the Old Man gave me. I instantly dissipated my chakra orb and and smiled weakly at the genuinely excited and curious preteens.

Then, to my surprise, I suddenly felt a wave of vertigo. I blinked rapidly as I swayed. It felt as if I had lost a lot of blood. I suppose chakra worked the same way. With a small groan, I dropped my head down into my hands and pulled my knees up.

"_Ahhhh! Fei no nee-chan! Are you ok! Are you dying! Don't die! Don't die! Kakashi-sensei do something!"_

"_Dobe, shut up."_

"_You're too loud!"_

"_Ok, ok you three. Calm down Naruto. I'll get Shibayama-sensei." _

With a poof, Kakashi disappeared from the room. 'How did he do that!' I was absolutely astonished at his disappearance. Sure, they could walk on walls, but well, teleportation was a whole different matter.

"Wizard ninjas..." I murmured to myself breathlessly. I then realized that somehow by appearing in this world, I had gained the same energy as the wizard ninjas here. I was a wizard ninja. I could do magic. I could teleport! Eyes wide with amazement and delight I did a little fist pump while muttering to myself a "F-k Yeah!"

"_Huh? F-k yeah? What's that?"_ Asked Naruto curiously.

Crap...I just taught Naruto a profanity.

"_I think it means hurray" _

Naruto squinted at me suspiciously. _"Why would she say hurray?"_

"_Obviously because she managed to manipulate chakra like she did dobe."_

"_Temee! __What was that!"_

"_Dobe."_

"_Temee!...wait, is making a glowing ball thingy hard?"_

Sakura growled, "_Of course it is! It takes a whole lot of chakra control to do what Fei-san did. Why do you think medical ninjas need perfect control, it's because they need to concentrate their chakra into highly dense form!"_

Naruto scratched his head. "_Uh. Ok...Hey Fei no nee-chan! That was really cool. Can you do it again?"_

"_Don't be stupid dobe. She's obviously chakra exhausted." _

"_Huh? From just doing that?"_

"_Naruto..."_ sighed Sakura, "_Fei-san obviously has low chakra levels. Kakashi-sensei told us that remember."_

"_Oh yeah..."_

I had no idea what the three were arguing about so intensely, but it must have been about me and chakra as I heard both mentioned multiple times. Whatever they were discussing, it was interrupted by the entrance of Blue-haired-man/healer man and Kakashi.

"_Ah! Shibayama-sensei! Hurry and fix Fei no nee-chan!"_

"_Ok, ok. Calm down Naruto. I will. Also, call me Ren. Shibayama sounds like my father."_

"_Alright! Now hurry up and heal Fei no nee-chan!"_

"_Naruto, be polite! I'm sorry about him Ren-sensei."_ Sakura said as she gave a bow to the Healer man.

Healer man walked over to me, and despite myself, I flinched away from him. He smiled sadly at me before crouching down so that we were eye to eye. Pointing to himself, he intoned, "Shibayama Ren."

So then I knew his name. Shibayama Ren. I knew sensei meant teacher in Japanese. I also knew it was used for doctors as well. Now I was absolutely sure that Ren was a doctor.

His hands started to emit a green glow as he brought them slowly towards me. I thought at the time that green chakra must signify healing. How he managed to make them green I had no idea. I didn't see him do any hand signs, so I kind of got the feeling that it was all concentration and willpower. Again, these two factors seemed to be the secret of chakra.

His chakra, unlike the blue I usually dealt with and felt, was warm and soothing. It seemed to naturally brush away any aches I had. Instead of rejecting the intrusion, my body accepted it willingly. It seemed to me that this was still very dangerous. I felt that if Ren wanted to, he could easily change the chakra already in my system to a malevolent form. If he had dishonorable intentions, he could kill or torture me at his leisure.

Luckily, before these mental revelations could bring about a panic attack, Ren pulled away and turned to talk to Kakashi.

"_Her chakra's grown."_

"_How much?"_

"_Almost double what she had yesterday. It's already at the level of an academy student. You say she was able to condense chakra into her hand?"_

"_That's correct."_

Ren frowned heavily as he glanced once in my direction. _"That's...that's amazing chakra control. The exercise with her chakra to concentrate it must have increased her spiritual strength."_

"_So that's the reason for her chakra growth?" _

"_I can't say for certain, but what I can say is that without a doubt, if she's trained properly, she could be an amazing healer. For someone with little training, her chakra control is amazing." _

Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke followed the conversation between Ren and Kakashi with puzzled expressions on their faces. Well, Sasuke was as emotionless as ever, but he still seemed interested.

"_Hey. Ren-sensei, Kakashi-sensei. Explain some to us will you?" _Naruto interrupted.

The two adults looked down at the impatient blond blankly, before Kakashi ruffled Naruto's hair; his eyes crinkling into a smile.

"_Sorry guys. This isn't something for little genin to understand."_

[End Flashback]

So like I mentioned before, it was five days since I was in the hospital. Since then, I hadn't been allowed to form chakra orbs. I wasn't able to understand the exact reason why, but Kakashi's insistent repetitions of, "Chakra!" then making an 'x' with his arms, got the message across. It was probably because I'd used too much chakra with my first orb.

Well, though they had forbidden me to use chakra, I thought it wouldn't be so bad if I still practiced moving it around. I worked with it only within my body so I didn't think it would 'leak' out and drain me. It seemed to work. I didn't get vertigo again even though I was constantly directing around chakra inside me. Actually, it made me feel stronger. Perhaps my practice was working also as 'training'?

There was a soft knock on my door, then Ren came busting in. I was surprised by his entrance. I hadn't seen him since my second day at the hospital, and somehow, I'd never expected anyone to visit me during my two hours of solitude before Kakashi and his little child soldiers arrived.

Giving me a friendly smile and what I expected was a good morning, Ren went over to the windows and pulled the curtains back. Ever since my getting fried incident, I refused to go anywhere near the window or the door. As a result, one of the preteens, usually Sasuke, opened and closed the curtains for me when they arrived and left.

Outside was lovely. It was bright and sunny and warm. Everyday here seemed to be a good day, the complete opposite of Seattle actually. Talking about home, I was now almost positive that I wasn't anywhere on Earth. Thinking about it logically, judging by the climate and the length of the day, I knew that if we were on Earth, this land should be somewhere in the same hemisphere as the United States. However, the constellations in the stars were all unfamiliar to me. Heck, I hadn't even seen the North Star. Unless the Earth had miraculously teleported to another galaxy, this wasn't my world.

My inner muse was interrupted by the warm energy of Ren's chakra. Startled from the sudden intrusion, I unconsciously directed a good chunk of my chakra towards his, latched on and pulled. To my shock, his chakra snapped, and suddenly, I was holding onto a lump it.

With a strangled gasp, Ren pulled away from me, and before I knew what happened, I was slammed down onto my bed. Hovering over me, and holding a kunai (Naruto had taught me the word) to my throat, was Death God.

My shocked green eyes met his blank brown ones. Trembling in terror, I carefully released Ren's lump of chakra and it floated out of my body to hover in the air before dissipating.

'How could I have been so stupid', I thought. I'd practically ripped out and stolen a piece of Ren. Staring at the masked face of Death above me, I was sure that I was going to die.

**A/N:**** Thank you to all my reviewers and my subscribers! I hoped you enjoyed this chapter! Criticism and comments are welcome and desired. **


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Hospital Duel and Lost In Translation

_Italics = Japanese unless stated otherwise_

**[Brackets]** = Translation for reader's benefit

I was hyperaware of the cold bite of metal on my neck, right under a pulsing vein. With each stuttered thump of my heart, the metal pressed against my skin a fraction of a centimeter more. All breath had left me.

"_Wait! ANBU-san, please withdraw!"_

Ren's words thankfully caused Death God to slowly pull back away from me. For a minute or maybe more I was stuck prone on the bed, trying desperately to calm my jumping heart. Finally, with a strangled gasp, I sat up. To my wry amusement, my arms trembled so much that I could barely support myself up with them.

"_Explain," _Death God curtly demanded.

Ren, to my relief seemed to be okay. He hadn't keeled over from my chakra stealing spree, nor was he even perturbed by the events. I took this as a positive sign. Perhaps plucking off pieces of other people's chakra happened often?

"_It was an accident, and a harmless one at that. I was just taken aback, that's why you felt the sudden flare of my chakra in distress. Unfortunately, chakra stealing is a very real possibility whenever we healers...well, heal. Most people have enough instinctual control to refrain from chakra stealing, and we don't often heal enemies who would want to steal our chakra. Not to mention, everyone knows that a healer can instantly damage and kill their patient while our chakra is in their system...most people wouldn't risk stealing chakra in fear of retribution."_

As Ren vouched for me, (at least I hoped he did), I managed to still my shaking with the help of a few deep breathes. And as Death God silently glided away out the door, I let out a soft sob of relief. At that moment, I could have kissed Ren, not that I did...he'd probably think I was trying to suck out his soul or something.

Ren didn't say much after that, he just waggled a finger warningly at me before letting the warm green glow of his hand rest on my neck where the kunai had managed to leave a small cut. Then, he wandered off to peer down at the seal on the ground the Old Man had made. He must have been satisfied with what he saw because he just nodded thoughtfully to himself before straightening up and meandering towards the door. With a final comforting smile, Ren was gone, and I finally relaxed.

This place would probably give me a heart attack within a month if I wasn't already stabbed to death by then. For a few minutes, I sat in silence, my mind completely blank and empty of thought. If someone had walked in at that moment, they would have thought I was hypnotized by the smear of spider gut on the wall - a remnant of a spider squeamish Sakura and a heroic Naruto.

A small breeze from the window made one of the spider's poor legs flutter...the strangely morbid scene startled me from my mindlessness. With a disgusted shake of my head, I turned my gaze away from the arachnid corpse and focused my attention instead on the seal on the ground.

After a minute or two of contemplation, I carefully slipped out of the bed and hesitantly edged my way towards the seal to get a better look. The seal was completely formed of words I realized. Kanji and some other sort of alphabet, probably Japanese, was the written language. I was extremely curious in how the seal worked. Were the words some sort of buddhist chant, or actual sentences? Was it a haiku, or a sonnet?

Glancing at the clock, I saw it showed a half hour before the three preteens would arrive. Furrowing my forehead, I thoughtfully tugged repeatedly on a lock of my hair. The longer I puzzled over the seal, the harder I pulled at my hair before a wince forced me to stop. Suddenly, I had an epiphany!

Eagerly, I trotted over to my bed and pulled the scroll out from under my pillow and began to write in Chinese, "_To change and translate Japan into words from home. To learn quickly the heard words. To understand the tongue of my neighbors_." My queer manner of writing was because it just wouldn't sound 'magical' enough if I'd written in normal syntax.

I wrote the sentences carefully into the same form of the Old Man's seal. Just when I was about to pour chakra into the newly written seal, I remembered Death God outside my room. It would be reckless and stupid of me to go about leaking chakra everywhere after the morning events. I had to plan this out carefully so that I would not be mistakenly thought of as a spy, assassin, terrorist...whatever they thought I was. With a soft sigh of disappointment, I tucked the scroll back under my pillow and waited.

The minutes crawled by. I seriously thought I was going to die from boredom. At last, it was 7:00 o'clock! Eagerly, I turned my attention to the door, but no one showed up. Biting my lower lip impatiently, I began to tug at my hair again in frustration at the unpunctual preteens. Finally, at 7:04, the door slammed open and the two boys charged inside, Sasuke first then Naruto right behind him. Naruto and Sasuke had seemed to have raced all the way to the hospital. Sakura came panting in after them a few seconds later, an annoyed glare on her face.

"_Temee! You cheated! You used chakra!"_ Naruto screamed angrily.

"_No one said no chakra dobe. It's your fault for being too stupid." _Sasuke drawled back.

"_Gahhhhhhhhhhh! Temee! I'm going to beat your ass!" _Naruto roared furiously, pulling out a kunai and shifting into an offensive form.

"_Stop it Naruto!"_ Snapped Sakura sharply.

Sasuke smirked smugly as he too pulled out a kunai and prepared for battle.

"_Sasuke-kun! Not you too!"_

I really didn't want the two dunderheads to start throwing sharp pointy things all around my room. I wasn't a ninja! More likely than not, I'd be hit by one of the kunai and killed.

"Naruto! Sasuke!" I called out. The two ignored my call. I then concentrated and formed another chakra orb in my palm in hopes of distracting them, but instead Naruto and Sasuke flung themselves at each other in a clang of metal and sparks. Frantically, I dispelled the chakra orb and was immediately hit with another wave of vertigo.

Everything was complete chaos: Naruto and Sasuke furiously fighting on the ceiling of my room, Kunai and shuriken stabbing the floor and walls, Sakura yelling shrilly at both of her teammates, and me dizzy and nauseous from chakra exhaustion.

As a shuriken came whizzing by my face, much too close for comfort, I began to brainstorm what might possibly distract the boys from fighting. There was only one thing I could think of, and in the chaos, confusion, panic and fear from both my earlier incident and my current one, I burst into loud hysterical tears.

Immediately, the sounds of battle ceased as Naruto and Sasuke both froze and nervously turned towards me. My hysterical sobbing soon turned into fake alligator tears as I became too amused by their flabbergasted expression to keep up my crying. As a result, I buried my face into my hands and dramatically shook and sobbed while in reality, I was smirking triumphantly.

Hesitantly, Naruto inched towards me, his hands finally free of any weapons. "_Fei no nee-chan? Are you alright?" _I wailed louder, practically vibrating with my fake sobs. Frantically, Naruto turned to his teammates. _"What do we dooooo!" _He practically screeched as he hopped around desperately. Sasuke had a definitely nervous, and slightly guilty expression on his face as he snapped back, "_How the hell am I supposed to know dobe." _For once, Naruto ignored the insult and instead turned pleadingly to me.

"_Nee-chan! Nee-chan! We're sorry! It won't happen again! I'm sorry we scared you!" _

The whole time Naruto was apologizing, he was hopping from one foot to another. I had to suppress a snort of laughter as I realized that he looked like he had to go and play firefighter, if you know what I mean.

Sakura sighed wearily. "_Why don't the two of you leave for a few minutes and go fetch her breakfast. I'll try to calm her down meanwhile." _

Nodding swiftly, the boys scrambled out of my room. As soon as the door closed and the footsteps of the boys faded away, both Sakura and I burst out into side-splitting laughter. After a few seconds of laughing our butts off, we finally stopped to gulp in air. Grinning proudly at her, I held up a palm while winking slyly at Sakura. With a matching smirk, the pink haired girl gave me a high five.

The two of us girls sat in companionable silence for a while, both of us reminiscing on how similar this event was to our first encounter. However, one minute became two, and two minutes became ten. With a huff of annoyance, Sakura stood from her seat and marched out the door, flashing me an apologetic smile.

As the door shut softly behind her, I managed to catch a glimpse of the empty chair outside my door. Death God was gone. I was alone. I realized this might be my only chance of trying out my seal. Eagerly, I checked my chakra status and was pleased to note that in the few minutes of rest, they had seemed to have filled up again. I suspected that because I had such meager amounts of chakra, it filled up quickly.

Pulling the scroll out again, I placed my hands on top of the seal and with one deep breath, pushed my chakra out. My chakra radiated from the palm of my hands and flowed into the written words easily. Just when I thought I had succeeded, my chakra began to leak and vaporize away from the words. It was a failure.

Sighing heavily, I glanced down at the experimental failure and pondered just what had gone wrong. Unfortunately, there were too many factors that could have hampered the seal. Everything from my handwriting to the symmetry of my seal could have been the problem.

Mostly, I thought it might be the directions of my words that was the problem. Pulling at my hair, I sketched out the seal again, but this time in English. I didn't want to bother writing out the detailed Chinese characters once more as they were a pain in the butt to do.

As I thoughtfully pondered over the words of my seal, I unconsciously tapped my finger on the word 'tongue'. I wondered perhaps if it was too vague. By accident, I released a tiny amount of chakra from my finger onto the seal. Imagine my surprise when my rough English seal glowed with chakra as it seemed to suck in the blue energy from my initial experiment.

Staring at my seemingly successful translation seal, I gingerly lifted my finger off the paper and gave myself a sharp pinch. Nope...I wasn't dreaming.

Not knowing what to expect, I mimicked the action of the Old Man and slammed my right palm over my seal. All of a sudden, my body was zapped and the words from my seal seemed to be sucked in towards the center until I couldn't see any part of the seal under my palm. When I lifted my hand, the paper was completely blank and in its place there was a small tattoo of a eagle on my palm.

I was bewildered. Why in the world was there an eagle tattoo on my hand? By then, I was practically yanking my hair out as I desperately tried to understand the significance of the eagle.

"Ok Fay. When you think of eagles, what do you think?" I mumbled to myself.

After a pause, I muttered, "Bald eagles." From there, I went down a list.

"United States. Home. Safety and comfort. Understanding the freakin language. English..." I paused.

"Ohhhh. I get it now."

Well, if this seal worked correctly: Japanese would automatically be translated into English in my brain, I would be able to speak Japanese, and I would be able to quickly learn and absorb the language.

Now all I needed was a Japanese speaker. Glancing up at the clock, I blinked in surprise when I noticed that another ten minutes had passed but Sakura, Naruto and Sasuke had yet to return.

After rolling up the scroll and tucking it under my pillow once more, I hurried over to the seal on the ground. However, I was disappointed to realize I still could neither read nor understand it. With a groan, I slapped myself on the head as I realized that I had forgotten to mention anything about reading or writing the language in my seal. I was so stupid. I also realized on my very short trip across the room to the seal that my body was completely spent. My legs could barely support me, and I felt lightheaded and nauseous again, but this time, my symptoms did not fade away like it had in the past.

With a soft groan, I stumbled back over to my bed and slumped down into it once again. As I felt my body shake and shiver from chills, it dawned on me that this time, I had gone too far. Now I understood why Kakashi had forbidden me from making chakra orbs. One tired me, but two actually sucked the life out of me. I got the feeling that three would lead to my death.

I was so ill that when the preteens entered a minute later, I didn't even care that I could understand them...relatively.

"We have returned." **[We're back]** Sakura said as she pushed open the door.

"We late, sorry. These boys are idiots of two." **[Sorry we're late. These two guys were being idiots.]**

"...Fei-san? Fei-san, are good and healthy? Fei-san!" **[Fei-san? Fei-san are you okay? Fei-san]**

**"**Fei no nee-chan!" Naruto screeched frantically.

"What is not right, Cherry Blossom?"** [What's wrong, Sakura?]** Sasuke asked.

"I know not. Call upon firewood mountain teacher. Be swift!"** [I don't know. Call Shibayama sensei. Hurry!"]**

By the time Ren arrived, I was pale and cold to the touch. Then, as Ren's warm chakra warmed me up, I was coherent enough to think one last thought before I blacked out.

Great. Just freakin fantastic. English my ass, I got freaking Google translate.

**A/N: I'm very sorry for the delay. Summer really distracted me. Thank you to all my reviews, alerts and followers! Comments and criticism are welcome. **


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Sweets and A Trip Outside

**[Brackets]** Translation for reader's benefit

'Single quotations_' _= Thoughts

As I came back into consciousness, the first thing I heard was a loud voice whining near my head. 'Naruto.' I thought with a sigh. Most likely, he was hovering near my bed being a drama queen again.

Slowly, I cracked open my eyes, wary of possible glaring lights. For a second, I thought I was outside as my vision recognized only blue. Then blue became an eye, then an eye became a pair of eyes. With a strangled yelp of shock, I instinctively lashed out with the back of my hand. My hand met the resistance of flesh; not a pleasant feeling I'll tell you.

With a yelp, Naruto fell onto his butt. Sitting on the ground clutching his cheek mournfully, the blond moaned, "Ouch/Itai." 'Now that was interesting', I thought. I could hear both the original Japanese word (itai) and the English translation (ouch) at the same time. But the words didn't blend and mix with one another. It's hard to explain...it's as if my brain had split into two separate areas; one recognizing and hearing Japanese, and the other translating it into English for me to understand. I found it rather disconcerting, but not as confusing as, lets say, double vision.

Groaning softly, I sat up as I tried to remember what exactly happened. Kakashi's stern expression reminded me soon enough. Chakra exhaustion. The usually laid back teacher had an uncharacteristic frown on his face. He didn't look angry, just disappointed. I flinched in reaction to his expression.

"Fei, " Kakashi started, "I very disappointed you. Never again I say. Chakra is no." **[Fay, I'm very disappointed with you. I won't say it again. No Chakra]** It took me a while to sort out all the information bombarding my head. One part of my brain recognized and heard the soft clip of Japanese. The other part heard and tried to process the broken English. I felt a headache starting. But, despite it all, I could still understand what Kakashi was saying. He was disappointed in me, and in that moment, I felt like such a fool. I was in a foreign, hostile world where even a hint of aggression could lead to my death. It was stupid of me to therefore go and disobey a direct order from a authoritative figure.

Lowering my head in a show of submission, I murmured a soft, "Sorry." A weary sigh from Kakashi was heard, and then I felt a warm weight fall on my head. I almost groaned in annoyance. He was patting my head. Such situations had often occurred to me at home as well. My petite figure was the perfect target for a head pat or ruffle. It was extremely aggravating. Usually, I would smack away the offending appendage and give the person the stink eye, but well...Kakashi was a professional killer, enough said. I don't think I managed to restrain all my annoyance, because the insufferable man chuckled and this time ruffled up my hair. 'Does he think I'm a fricken ten year old! I'm eighteen! God damn it!' I thought grumpily.

x

When the gang left, my right hand was sweaty and cramped from clenching it so much. I was lucky that none of the ninjas found it odd that I kept my hands under my blanket for the rest of the day, content in just watching the preteens train. Now that they were gone, I was finally able to relax and observe my palm.

'That's weird...' I thought as I squinted down at the eagle tattoo. It seemed as if the tattoo had faded a bit on the edge of the left wing. However, I wasn't sure. It could have been my imagination. After all, I hadn't really managed to see the tattoo clearly the first time. Either way, I wondered to myself if the translation spell would fade over time. I really, really, really hoped it did. My constant migraine was killing me. I'd rather just learn Japanese the regular way, by immersion. Considering that everyone here spoke only Japanese, I would probably pick up the language pretty quickly.

Now that thought led to a problem I'd been avoiding for quite a while. How did I get here? How long will I be here? How can I get back? Can I get back? My chest tightened as I pondered these questions. If I remembered correctly, I was about to be squished by a tree before I blacked out and arrived in this world. Did I die perhaps? Was this some sort of messed up purgatory? If it was, I had no idea what in the world the higher powers were thinking. Then again, maybe they weren't thinking.

I surprised myself when I noticed the tears trickling down my face. But, I didn't stop myself for once. It felt nice to cry, and really, I kind of deserved it. Curling into a ball, I started to hum Chariots of Fire for no reason at all. **(A/N: Olympics!)** In the silent room, my blubbering attempts to hum Chariots of Fire of all things sounded rather demonic. With a slightly hysterical laugh, I stopped humming in fear that it would be taken as some sort of mind controlling chant.

Groaning, I buried my face into the pillow and fell asleep.

x

A garbled murmur was what I awoke to. Slowly, I sat up and blinked my bleary eyes furiously. When my vision focused, I saw the three kids staring at me. Huh...my sixth day here, and I'd slept in. Glancing at the clock, I saw the time was already 7:20. 'Ugh. They'd seen me sleeping'. I surreptitiously wiped the drool off my face.

Blushing, I pointed to the bathroom pleadingly. Naruto looked confused at first before he turned red and hurried out of the room with a nod. Sasuke and Sakura, realizing my plea as well, quickly followed him out.

Scrambling out of my bed, I hurried to the bathroom. After finishing my morning ritual, I edged out of the bathroom, my hair still dripping a bit from the shower. "Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura. I'm done." I called out gently. There was no response. Shrugging, I trotted over to my bed and sat crisscross applesauce style. I pulled the breakfast tray over and began to eat, all the while wondering where the preteens had wandered off to.

I was about done with my breakfast when I heard the sound of footsteps approaching my door. Soon, the door was opened and Sasuke sauntered in with the other two. From the three, I could smell a sweet scent. No, to be specific, I could smell a sweet scent from the small box Sakura was carrying. The smell was vaguely familiar, though I couldn't exactly place where I'd come across it before.

Sakura approached my bed with a wide smile, and held out the box to me. I was surprised by this gesture. Hesitating a bit, I took the box from her and opened it. My eyes widened in delight.

"Dango!" I cried out happily. Taking out a stick of the soft rice cake dumpling, I popped it into my mouth with a soft sigh of relief. It wasn't chocolate, but it was sweet, and that was all I cared about. Munching happily, I pulled out three more sticks from the box and held them out to the ninjas. Naruto reached out for one gladly, but Sakura smacked his hand away with a glare. Shaking her head, she gestured for me to keep eating.

I wanted to share though. It was clear that the dango were purchased out of the pockets of these kids. I was an adult, I couldn't let them spend money on me. 'Well...' I thought while glancing at the remaining two balls of dango on my stick, 'letting them buy was okay if I was sharing, right?'

This time, I glared as I held out the dango. With a sigh of defeat, Sakura took the three sticks from my hand and passed one to each of the boys. I'm not sure if Sasuke enjoyed the sweet treat, but he ate it.

I saved the last stick of dango for Kakashi, and truthfully, I think it was a good idea that I decided to only eat one stick of dango. The combination of sugar and coped up energy equaled hyper. Hence why I suddenly jumped out of my bed and began to pace the length of my room furiously.

The three preteens watched my back and forth marathon nervously.

"Her broken we?" **[Did we break her?]** Sasuke asked warily. A helpless shrug from Sakura was the answer.

The three adapted to my pacing soon enough. They even came up with a game for it. As I paced, they ran around the room on the ceiling as fast as possible. It seemed that they were trying to see who would tire out more quickly: me, the soft civilian pumped full of sweets, or them, the trained super soldiers sprinting upside down.

When Kakashi slipped through the window at 9:00, he found us still at it. Blinking in confusion, he scratched the back of his head and shrugged. When I noticed his entrance, I stopped pacing; groaning in relief, Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura dropped down to the floor.

"1347 laps." Naruto panted while giving Kakashi a thumbs up. Raising an eyebrow, the silver haired man just shook his head and sighed.

"Hey, hey, Scarecrow teacher! Think Fei no nee-chan needs go out." **[Hey Kakashi-sensei. I think Fei no nee-chan needs to go out]**

Sakura chimed in "I believe yes. Cage she in like. She civilian is only." **[I think so too. It's like she's in a cage. Anyways, she's only a civilian]**

"Hn. Weak." Sasuke agreed with a grunt.

Kakashi observed me carefully. I gave him a hesitant, confused smile.

Turning away from me, he asked Naruto. "She ask you? Want to outside go out." **[Did she ask you? That she wanted to go outside?]**

"No. I think up." **[No. It was my idea]**

It seemed that Kakashi was actually considering it. He even crossed is arms in thought and thoughtfully surveyed my room. Seeing the expectant looks in his students' eyes, he slumped his shoulders with a sigh.

"Ok, Fishcake. I ask Fire Shadow." **[Okay Naruto. I'll ask Hokage-sama]** I had to refrain from snorting in laughter at the translation of Naruto's name. Fishcake? Really?

To all our surprise, Naruto suddenly cheered, "F-k Yeah!" exuberantly in English as he grabbed Kakashi and dragged him out the door. Kakashi seemed to be groaning, "I didn't mean right now," as Naruto pulled him away. Rapidly my face flushed red at the realization of Naruto's use of profanity. 'Oh God. I really did teach him a curse word in English.' I thought as I dropped my head into my hands in exasperation.

In the awkward silence that followed I realized just how broken the team was without Naruto. Without the loud blond's incessant chatter and sunny disposition, the group was silent and uncomfortable. Sakura, it seemed, had a huge crush on Sasuke, if her covert glances at him were any indication. Sasuke meanwhile ignored us girls and instead bent down to adjust his sandals.

It was then I noticed the bandages wrapped around his calves. Frowning worriedly, I called out, "Sasuke." Said boy looked up at me blankly. I pointed to his bandages and asked him in Japanese, "Itai?" I'd remembered the phrase from this morning when I had smacked Naruto.

For a second, the dark haired boy blinked in confusion as he glanced down at his legs. Realizing what I was asking, he shook his head no.

"No. Injury not." **[No. Not injured]** He said.

Grinning indulgently at me, Sakura pulled out a roll of bandages from her back pouch and swiftly wrapped her fists with them. When she was done, she pounded her fists together.

"Protection." She explained.

Eagerly, I held out my left hand. Sakura handed me the bandages. Slowly, I wrapped my right hand with the bandages in an attempt to copy Sakura's swift technique, all the while, careful to keep the tattoo from showing. When I finished, I held out my hand proudly to the curious preteens.

Snorting at my sloppy work, Sasuke shook his head and pulled out his own bandages. Slowly, step by step, he showed me the correct way to wrap my hand. He was a patient teacher for such a brooding kid. I followed his instructions by wrapping my left hand along with him. When we finished, I flexed my hand and was surprised at how comfortable and flexible my hand was despite the bandages.

Quickly pulling off the bandages on my sloppily wrapped right hand, I carefully tried to duplicate my left hand. Once done, I held my hand out to Sasuke for his approval. He gave me a small smirk and "Hn'd" after inspecting my work. Grinning triumphantly, I proudly pounded my fists together, but ended up wincing. Sakura laughed at me, and Sasuke smirked superiorly as I pouted. Well, at least I found a way to hide my tattoo.

x

When Naruto and Kakashi returned, I knew it had been a success. The million watt grin he sported and Kakashi's little crinkled-eyed smile was more than enough for me to infer their victory. I had to force myself to just smile curiously at them, though inside I wanted to laugh out loud and hug the two.

Practically bouncing over to my bedside, Naruto plopped down into a chair and proceeded to talk rapidly. My poor brain seemed incapable of translating or handling the speed and amount of words the blond was spewing out. Seeing my baffled expression, Naruto paused for air, then stared. A frown appeared on his face as he observed my bandaged hands.

"You well?"** [Are you okay?]** He asked. Nodding comfortingly, I pounded my fists together and said in Japanese, _"_Protection_." _Sakura seemed both proud and embarrassed to see me copying her, while Naruto and Kakashi just looked confused.

As Sakura quickly explained to the two, I pulled out the last stick of dango, and held it out to Kakashi. Said man looked bewildered for a second before his signature smile crinkled into life as he took the dango with a polite "thank you."

The silver haired man made quick work of the dango, then reached into his pouch to pull out a paper bracelet of all things. I could see that the paper bracelet had words - seals I realized - written onto it. What it did, I was not sure.

Kakashi held out the bracelet to me, but I hesitated to take it. The words written on the paper was definitely a seal, and because of that, I was scared. For all I knew, it could zap me like the seal in my room.

Seeing my frightened expression, Naruto started to babble an explanation. Of course, he didn't realize I could understand him. He was probably just explaining in hopes of calming me down with just his voice alone.

"Ok Fei no nee-chan. Find you when gone and lost. Stay little time!" **[It's okay Fei no nee-chan. It's only so we can find you if you're lost. And it's temporary!]** I calmed down at the reassurance from Naruto. Personally, I thought it was more than just a GPS tracker, but well, if what Naruto said was true, it was only temporary.

I took the paper bracelet and screwing my eyes shut, I slipped it on. Immediately, my back went ramrod straight as I stiffened. A small whimper of distress escaped me as I felt the warm flow of my chakra freeze. Where once it was a flowing stream, it was now a stagnant pool. Staring at the ninjas with wide eyes, I tugged at the bracelet, but found that it wouldn't come off.

Naruto patted my arm awkwardly, and Sakura gave me a nervous smile.

"Itai?" Sasuke asked.

I shook my head. He then grunted, and opened the door to my room. Holding the door open, he jerked his head in its direction. His body language was clear. 'Hurry up, let's go.'

I slipped out of the bed and warily made my way towards the door, but to everyone's surprise, even my own, I froze at the threshold and refused to go further. Naruto scampered ahead of me and took my hand. He gently tugged, but I dug my heels in. It seemed that I had developed a phobia of doors and windows. Or maybe it was just these doors and windows specifically. Either way, my body had frozen.

Logically, I knew that if I would be zapped, the team wouldn't try to lead me out. I trusted them. However, phobias are never really rational. Suddenly, I felt a hand on my back between my shoulder blades. It gave me a soft push. Looking up and behind me, I saw it was Kakashi. I admit it, to my complete mortification, I had to be coaxed out the door like some sort of spooked animal. At the time, I probably wasn't really all that much different from one.

And so, for the first time in six days, I left my hospital room.

x

As we made our way down the hall, I saw many curious glances. Apparently, it was unusual for a civilian to be escorted out by a team of ninja. Or maybe it was the fact that Naruto was practically vibrating next to me in his excitement. Yeah...that was probably it.

When we came to the entrance of the hospital, everyone paused and sweat-dropped, as they glanced down at my feet. It seemed that all of us had forgotten that I was barefoot this whole time. Looking around, Sasuke managed to curtly order a nurse to bring him some shoes. The poor women looked terrified of the glaring, brooding boy. They couldn't find me any shoes, but they did find me some slippers. It would have to do.

As I stepped out into the sun, I couldn't help but to grin widely. The plot of land and trees in front of the hospital wasn't huge, but it wasn't tiny either. I didn't care though. All I could do was bask in the sunlight and wind. Together, the five of us headed over to a tree to our right. When we moved off the pavement onto the grass, I couldn't help but to crouch down and pet the green lawn. Still being morning, the grass was slightly damp.

When we made it to the tree, I was content to sit at its base and pick and observe the flowers and plants around me. The three preteens meanwhile had to run laps around the hospital. I gave them a wave every time they came around, though I doubted Naruto and Sasuke noticed, they had turned it into a race again.

Kakashi leaned against the trunk of the tree and read from his little orange book. The giggles and blushes he sported caused me to grimace in distaste. 'Pervert' I thought. People were starting to show up at the hospital. It was interesting to watch the people of this world, they were just so different. Meanwhile, my hands busied themselves with making a long chain of flowers.

I hadn't done something like this since I was a little bean in elementary school. Though I was lost, confused, scared and homesick, I kind of found myself relaxing in the quiet morning calm. At home, I was always pressured with schoolwork, with making money, with friends, but here, all of those troubles faded away. I found myself wondering, 'when was the last time I just sat and relaxed?'

Out of habit, I glanced up over at Kakashi. To my consternation, he was silently observing me. At my nervous, self conscious glance, his eye crinkled into a friendly smile and he reached down to pat my head before turning his attention back to his book. Huffing in annoyance, I turned my gaze sharply back to people watching.

Of course, seeing as my luck lately really, really sucked, the peace didn't last long. Without warning, Kakashi snapped his book shut. When I started in surprise and looked up at him, he was looking off into the distance, with his one eye narrowed slightly. For a second, I wondered what happened to his other eye.

Patting myself off, I stood up and squinted in the direction Kakashi was staring at, but couldn't see anything, only the roofs of buildings. But then, one second the roofs was empty, then the next there was a group of ninja sprinting from roof to roof towards the hospital.

As they arrived at the entrance to the hospital grounds, a group of doctors sprinted out from the building towards them. Their hands glowed bright green as they frantically healed a wounded man on the back of one of his companions. I shifted nervously as I got the feeling that the injured man's chakra felt familiar. I wasn't sure though because my own stagnant chakra was impeding my ability to feel and recognize. The healers continued to pour green chakra into the injured man as a stretcher made its way towards them.

Personally, I felt a little shell shocked by the sight. My whole life, I had never seen such violence before. The news censored gore, I'd never really liked violent movies, and my life had always been oh so sheltered and safe. The smell of blood, the sight of blood, and the realization that there were many sharp knives and weapons embedded into the injured ninjas' body made me both queasy and dizzy.

Kakashi didn't seemed perturbed by the sight at all. In fact, he seemed more interested in my poor reaction to violence then in the bloody incident in front of him.

Suddenly, the three preteens were there.

"Scarecrow teacher, what is not right?" **[Kakashi-sensei, what's wrong?]** asked Sakura.

"No problem. Only medical healing alarm. Serious it is not." **[It's okay. Only a medical emergency. It's not serious.]**

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. A man bleeding to death, covered in knives, wasn't serious? But it seemed so because the three didn't look worried anymore. In fact, they only looked faintly curious. Appalled at their callousness, I had to force myself to calm down. 'Okay Fay, calm down. They're professional fighters. They've probably seen things like this many times before. Think of this as a...cultural difference.' I told myself.

As the injured man was lowered onto the stretcher, his head rolled over to face my direction. The man, I recognized him! Or at least I finally recognized his chakra signal, and recognized his mask. It was Death God!

I gave a strangled yell of shock as I saw the familiar cat mask of Death God. The frightening slippery feel of his chakra was definitely his as well. Without thinking, I started to jog over to him, my face twisted with worry. Sure, I was terrified of the man, but that didn't mean I wanted him dead.

A flash of color, then a gust of wind, and Kakashi was standing in front of me, blocking my path. He smiled gently, then shook his head. I peered around Kakashi and frantically pointed to the rapidly disappearing figure of Death God. The damn scarecrow just patted me on the head...AGAIN, before saying, "Worry for him glad you, all right he be. Teachers know to make good." **[I'm glad you're worried about him, but he'll be alright. Leave it to the healers okay!]**

With a heavy sigh, I nodded sadly.

**A/N: I felt bad about how late my last chapter was so I decided to upload this chapter as quickly as I could! Thank you so much to all my reviews, followers and alerts! I love each and every one of you. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Criticism and advice are welcome. **


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

ANBU and Watching

**[Brackets]** Translation for reader's benefit

'Single quotations_' _= Thoughts

**A/N: I've had a few reviews that said the translations were confusing them. My advice, if this is the case, is to only read the [Brackets]. I hope this helps a little. **

**(VERY IMPORTANT A/N AT THE END OF CHAPTER. PLEASE READ) **

By the time Death God had completely left my view, I was depressed. What had started out as a lovely relaxing morning had evolved into a stark comparison of worlds. My world, which comprised of safety, family and comfort had for just a few minutes been faded out by the bright, exciting new dimension. But it was too exciting for me - too violent, too abrupt, too nerve-racking. I wanted to go home. I was raised in a soft environment, I didn't think I could survive in this harsh one.

The four ninjas seemed to notice my deteriorating mood, and Naruto was quick to try to reassure me. The sunny blond found it necessary to charade just how strong Death God was, and how Death God would be okay.

He mimed stabbing himself and falling to the ground, then rose up again and flexed his muscles while giving me a thumbs up. I have to admit, it was pretty amusing, and I couldn't help but smile a little.

It seemed to me that the three preteens were sure that it was Death God's injuries that I was upset about. In some ways this was true, but only Kakashi seemed to tune into what was really distressing me; the violence, the blood, the culture shock.

Observing me curiously, Kakashi suddenly pulled out a kunai and gently underhand tossed it towards me. I squeaked in shock and backed away quickly, not even attempting to catch the weapon. My reaction apparently proved a point for him, as he apologized and patted my head. If he wasn't holding the kunai that he had picked up from the ground, I would have kicked him in the groin.

The rest of the day went normally from there...well, okay, I wouldn't say normal. Watching kids blow fire, duplicate themselves, and blow up things with paper was definitely not normal. At the exploding paper tags, I couldn't help but to glance at my bracelet apprehensively.

When lunch time came around, Naruto begged Kakashi for ramen. He won. The blond and Sakura (grudgingly) went off to buy this Ichiraku Ramen that Naruto had raved about.

"Fei no nee-chan need to eat ramen Cherry Blossom! Hospital food yuck!" **[Fei no nee-chan needs to try ramen Sakura-chan! Hospital foods gross!]** Naruto had whined. I didn't really mind that Naruto was using me as an excuse to eat his ramen. He was right after all, hospital food did kind of suck.

Near dinner time was when we finally went back in. As soon as I crawled into the hospital bed, I held out my wrist to Kakashi, practically demanding him to take off the bracelet. Said masked ninja chuckled and easily pulled off the restricting seal, and with it gone, my chakra flowed again. I sighed in relief as I relished in the comforting flow of energy rushing throughout my body. It was official, I hated paper bracelets.

Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura were completely exhausted by the time we had dinner together.(Well, Sasuke of course tried not to show it.) They also seemed to be half starved as well. Sasuke and Naruto practically inhaled their food, while Sakura daintily, but completely cleared her bento.

The bad thing about the hospital food here was that it was pretty much the exact same meal every single day. Miso soup, either spinach or broccoli, a small fish and rice. The preteens seemed to have noticed this too as they seemed to enjoy swapping my fish for their tempura, or their tomato for my spinach, or my miso soup for their eggs. They somehow always managed to change/swap out my dishes without me seeing anything. Another game it seemed; I was eternally grateful. However, I didn't comment on their charity. The one time I asked Sasuke if he didn't like tomatoes, the boy had almost choked to death on an onigiri.

After dinner, we sat in comfortable silence. Well, okay, Kakashi and I sat in comfortable silence while the other three just collapsed into fatigued muteness.

Naruto was lying on the ground rubbing his full belly when he suddenly asked, "Fei no nee-chan, age?" I almost answered him instinctively before remembering to fake a curious, confused look.

Stumbling up, he pulled over one of the new scrolls Sakura had gifted to me and wrote "Age" in kanji. He then pointed to himself, and wrote down 12. He then pointed to Sakura and wrote down 13. Pointing to Sasuke, Naruto paused looking uncertain. The dark haired boy scowled darkly before snapping out, "12." Naruto wrote that down for me too. Finally, the boy looked to Kakashi. "26." Kakashi said. Naruto's jaw fell open at that.

"Scarecrow teacher! You old!" **[Kakashi-sensei! You're old!]** Kakashi just ignored the comment and continued reading.

Naruto pointed to the kanji and quickly handed me the pencil, looking at me expectantly. Shrugging, I wrote down 18. My birthday is May 2nd, so I'd been 18 for only a few weeks.

Silence. Then chaos as Naruto practically screamed as he pointed at me in shock. So surprised by the blond's over reaction, I also screamed a little and backed away from him sharply, accidentally rolling off the bed. With a grunt of pain, I landed on the hard floor.

"FISHCAKE!" **[NARUTO!]** Sakura shrieked furiously as she quickly hurried to help me up. Gingerly, I dusted myself off and sat back down on my bed.

"Gahh! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!" Naruto chanted as he fluffed my pillow and smoothed down my bed covers. When we all finally settled down, Sasuke, Sakura and even Kakashi curiously came over to peer down at my age.

"Hn. 18." Sasuke grunted thoughtfully, raising one eyebrow in surprise.

"Thought she 15..." **[I thought she was 15]** Sakura murmured before trailing off.

Suddenly, Naruto's face turned bright red. A deep flush rose up from his neck to cover his entire face. Kakashi curiously studied his embarrassed student before the man snorted in laughter.

"Fishcake. She 81 you think?" **[Naruto. Did you think she was 81]**

For a second, I was confused by Kakashi's comment, before I realized what he meant. Naruto had read my scroll upside down. While I properly wrote 18, to him it had looked like 81.

"Loser." Sasuke grunted with a smirk.

Sakura just sighed wearily while shaking her head. Naruto just turned a darker shade of red.

x

When it became near time for the ninja's to leave, I remembered the absence of Death God. Surely, he would not be able to guard my room, as injured as he was. It seemed as if I was right. A few minutes before 9:00, the door opened and another, different Death God glided through the entrance. Following him was Blond-haired man. He didn't look very happy for some reason. As Kakashi noticed Blond-haired man's stiff expression, and the new Death God, he too tensed a little, a wary look in his eye.

The new Death God wore a white dog mask with a simple black design unlike original Death God whose cat mask was marked by red - and green as well as I'd later noticed. I couldn't tell if he wore the same uniform as Death God number 1 because a large hooded black cloak completely covered him from neck down. Only his black sandals were visible.

I, along with the three preteens, blatantly stared at this stranger. The tense atmosphere slowly faded as Kakashi smiled and scratched the back of his head as he gestured towards the new Death God.

"Fei," he called, gaining my attention. "ANBU." Kakashi explained.

I blinked in confusion. "Anbu?" I asked while pointing at the stranger.

Kakashi nodded. He then pointed to Blond-haired man. "Middle mountain first boar" **[Yamanaka Inoichi]** Luckily, the situation was serious enough to keep me from laughing at the translation of Inoichi's name.

"Inoichi" I repeated carefully, while giving said man a nervous look.

I flinched when I noticed his gaze on me.

There then was an awkward silence as everyone looked to each other to make the first move. It was Anbu who took the initiative first step...out my door. The silent man smoothly took a seat in the chair outside. With that, everyone else started to trickle out as well. Sasuke closed the curtains, Sakura took my tray and Naruto picked up any spare kunai or weapons laying around. Then the three preteens waved and called out their goodbyes (Sasuke 'hn'd') as they left. Kakashi, the last to leave shut the door softly behind him.

A shiver ran down my spine as I saw the stare of Anbu boring into me before my view and his were impeded by the door. I wasn't sure what to think of this new guard... Judging by Kakashi and Inoichi's tense response, I got the feeling that it would be much better for me if Death God healed quickly and returned.

x

My 7th day at the hospital started very, very early and not very good at all. At around 1:00 am, I was awakened by the soft creak of my door opening. Stiffening, I slowly cracked open my eyes to peer into the pitch black room. Once my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I had to keep in a yelp of shock as I saw Anbu standing silently INSIDE my room. He was standing in front of the closed door, staring at me intently.

He knew I was awake and watching him, but he made no move to leave, hide or even explain his creepy visit. Gulping, I closed my eyes again, and tried to sleep. When I awoke again two hours later, I was convinced that it had all been a terrible, freaky dream. However, when I opened my eyes and looked out into the darkness, Anbu was still there.

Now inexplicably unnerved by his presence, and more than a little hysterical from paranoia and exhaustion, I sat up slowly and whispered, "Anbu?"

No response. The man just continued to stare. I wondered if Death God had done the exact same thing in the past, staring at me while I slept. Perhaps, Death God had just found it necessary to keep me from knowing. They were ninjas, I was sure that if they wanted to they could have completely concealed their presence from me. However, my gut feeling told me that Death God had always stayed guarding outside. Anbu doing this was abnormal and a cause for worry.

x

A whole week went like this. I could tell that Kakashi, Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura and even Ren were worried about me. Due to Anbu's relentless staring, I could barely sleep. Dark bags developed under my eyes, and I was jittery, and prone to starting. My appetite fell, and I grew silent and sullen.

Anbu terrified me. I didn't know why he was doing it, but I was confident that my guard was intentionally trying to drive me a little insane.

The morning of my 14th day at the hospital, Ren, Inoichi, Kakashi, and surprisingly The Old Man arrived, bright and early. Actually, it wasn't all that bright out yet as it was only 4:00 am. When they walked through the door, they seemed warily curious to the presence of Anbu in my room.

When they saw my wide-eyed form curled up on the bed, shivering they looked surprised.

"Good morning Fei-san." Ren called out gently. Looking me over worriedly.

Kakashi, who was frowning as he looked from Anbu, to me, then back suddenly asked, "You not conceal yourself from her? Always scared, tired and sick is this reason?" **[Did you not conceal yourself from her? Is this the reason why she's been so scared, tired and sick recently?]**

Anbu just nodded in confirmation.

With a peeved expression, Ren snapped, "You do this why? No wonder she scared with you staring her at night!" **[Why did you do that? With you staring at her all night, no wonder she was scared!] **

Lately, it had been much harder for me to understand everyone. The eagle on my palm had faded quite a lot. Nowadays, I had to concentrate to be able to hear the translated words over the Japanese. It was rather like the translated words were fading away along with the tattoo. At that time, the translations were only a loud whisper.

"Necessary it was." **[It was necessary]** Anbu replied.

The Old Man frowned as he stepped out from behind Inoichi. "I remember no ordering you to do so." **[I do not recall ordering you to do so]**

The tension in the room spiked at The Old Man's words. Before Anbu could reply, the door snapped open and an old man covered in bandages calmly walked in.

"Fire Shadow. My orders it was." **[Hokage-sama. It was my orders]**

It seemed the Old Man's name was Hokage-sama. Said man sighed, before asking, "Why?"

"Really, I need to answer! Disturbing story of foreign female whose chakra is demon sized. A. Threat. It. Is! **[Do I really need to answer that? I've heard disturbing tales of a foreign girl with demon level chakra. That. Is. A. Threat!] **

'Well...that's new.' I thought weakly.

"No. False that is! I watch and record her chakra. It grows no more! Not even genin size!" **[No! That's not true. I've been monitoring her chakra and it's stopped growing! It's not even genin level.]** Ren tried to explain.

"I see. Then a waste she is. Kill her!" **[I see. So she's useless then. Kill her!] **The Bandaged Man ordered sharply.

I knew I had to act like I couldn't understand. I knew that I had to feign ignorance to the order of my death, but the lack of sleep, my paranoia, my high strung nerves tossed out all of my logic. I paled dramatically, and let out a sob of fear as I scrambled away from Anbu.

I noticed too late that Anbu had not made a move. I noticed too late Kakashi, Ren, Inoichi and the Hokage-sama's look of confusion at the Bandaged Man's abrupt order. I did notice however the Bandaged Man's triumphant smirk.

"So. You understand do you?" **[So. You can understand us.]** The Bandaged Man drawled. My eyes flickered up to Kakashi's face. His expression was carefully blank. I couldn't read him at all. Hokage-sama's face was also equally unreadable. Inoichi was frowning. Only Ren showed shock, confusion and suspicion.

"I take her now." **[I'll be taking her now.]** Said the Bandaged Man.

I don't know when it happened, but Anbu had moved behind me. His cold hands dug into my shoulder as he effortlessly dragged me up out of bed onto my feet. I was unashamedly crying by then. My whole body quivering in terror and hopelessness.

Anbu reached into a fold in his cloak with his free hand and pulled out a paper bracelet. Without ceremony, he shoved it onto my wrist, and my chakra froze. Then he herded me towards the door. Knowing I couldn't escape, I followed his lead silently without protest, though my trembling legs made it hard for me to walk properly.

"A moment. Three Body, I take her. Snoring can reveal all truth." **[Wait. Danzou, I will take her. Ibiki will reveal the truth.]** Hokage-sama suddenly said.

"Do not worry. I am capable as you." **[No need to worry. I'm just as fully capable.]** The Bandaged Man, Danzou, I realized, replied sharply.

"It is my order." **[That is my verdict]** Hokage-sama said, a note of finality in his tone.

The tension was palpable. Finally, Danzou bowed his head once to Hokage-sama before I felt the bruising hold of Anbu leave my shoulder. Without him supporting me, I tumbled to the ground, my legs, unable to support me.

Anbu and Danzou left, and I was still crying soundlessly. Carefully, a hand grabbed my arm, and I was easily hoisted up to my feet. The hand, I soon saw, was Inoichi's, so of course I cringed in his hold.

Looking around me, I was disheartened to see no relieved faces. I wasn't out of the fire yet. With a sharp tug, the ground disappeared from beneath my feet as I was slung up into Inoichi's arms. Then Ren came towards me, a pinched expression on his face. Ruffling his own blue hair wearily, his right hand glowed green, touched my neck, and then I knew no more.

x

When I came to, my first observation was just how stiff my neck felt. My next observation was the hard surface my body laid on. Then I opened my eyes, and saw my location - a tiny, dark, dank cell.

"Merde." I swore dully to myself.

**A/N: First of all, thank you to all my supporters! I can't believe all the positive response I'm receiving. **

**Next, I want to thank my GUEST reader for all the useful criticism. It was very helpful. **

**Finally, the very important part. While writing out the main outline for this story, I realized that I need a pairing. At first, I did not believe I would have any romance in this story at all, but well, sometimes the characters write the plot and the writer has no choice but to follow along. However, this story will not revolve around romance. So here are my two questions. **

**Who do you want Fay to be paired up with? **

**Who do you NOT want Fay to be paired up with?**

**Restrictions are: **

**Can only be male**

**Can not be married**

**These are my only restrictions. I am open to anything from OC to...heck Orochimaru if that tickles your fancy. Thank you. **


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Interrogation and Photos

**[Brackets]** Translation for reader's benefit

'Single quotations_' _= Thoughts

The cell was too damn short for me to stand properly. I guessed it was about 4 feet 10 inches in height. A taller person would have had to crouch, but luckily, I was able to make due with just ducking my head down. Yay for being vertically challenged.

The length of the room was also uncomfortably short. I suspected that if I were just 2 inches taller, my head and feet would brush the walls. Luckily, my petite form at least gave me enough room to sleep. Not that I did much of that...the ground was too damp.

I wasn't sure how long I'd been stuck in the cell. There weren't any windows and I hadn't received any food or water. My hunger had long ago faded to a apathetic dullness that came with exhaustion. I was thirsty though. Extremely thirsty.

I'd never done very well in stress. Whenever my fears overcome me, my blood pressure rises and my immune system just seems to decide to go on a vacation. 'Fricken immune system, it's probably lounging in Hawaii.' I could already feel the uncomfortable itch in my throat, and the unmistakable chills and fatigue that came with fevers. Oh, and I was probably losing my sanity and my temper too.

This was the state I was in when I was finally fetched by a man with the upper half of his face covered in bandages. I wondered how he could see. Perhaps he was blind, considering there was even a metal headband (a very popular accessory that everyone seemed to have) wrapped around his eyes. The man was dressed in dull gray clothing that looked a lot like the uniforms of the WWI Doughboys. Despite his seemingly inability to see, he managed to find the keyhole of my cell and lead me out with ease.

Having been in a cramped position for who knows how long, my legs ached, and my head spun. The fever probably didn't help. The man walked slowly though; for this I was grateful.

One hallway, then a right turn, then left, then left, then right... I soon lost track of the many twists and turns we made. Not that I would ever want to remember how to get back to my hell hole.

When we finally arrived at our location, the man opened the door for me, and beckoned me inside. Too weary to even hesitate, I stumbled blindly inside. The door shut sharply behind me.

Blankly, I observed my...room. The walls were an eerie off white with faint shadows of brown here and there. It looked suspiciously like blood stains... Naturally, I shuddered and edged away from the walls. A metal table, which I could see was actually welded into the floor, sat imposingly in the center of the room. A pair of equally metal, and extremely uncomfortable looking chairs were present as well.

Not knowing what else to do I dragged myself over to a chair, slumped down, and waited. I would say that the room was completely silent, except that the steady ticking of the clock above the door was deafening.

Tick.

Tock.

Tick.

Tock.

It was driving me mad. Don't ask me why, but I got it into my head that I just had to get rid of that obnoxious noise. Fueled by adrenaline and sheer stubbornness, I dragged my chair over to the door, wincing at the screech this caused.

On wobbly knees, I climbed up onto the seat, and gingerly stood up. Without any hesitation, I pulled off the clock from the wall and slipped out its batteries. Sighing in relief, I placed the clock back where it came from, and clambered down from the chair.

Clutching the batteries in one hand, I used my other to push my chair back to its original position. I was so pleased with my little accomplishment that I didn't even flinch at the screeching sound where the steel chair dragged against the stone floor.

Then I waited again.

When I had pulled out the batteries from the clock, the time had been 4:15. I don't know whether it was AM or PM. After about, I believe, an hour of waiting, I sort of regretted pulling out the batteries to the clock. How long had I been sitting there? How long had I waited?

We must have been underground because the room was surprisingly chilly, despite the relatively warm climate here. Shivering from nerves and chills, I tucked my fingers under my arms and pulled my bare feet off the floor.

I waited.

I coughed.

I waited.

I tugged repeatedly at my hair.

I waited.

I laid down on the cold floor.

I waited.

I woke up.

'What the hell is going on?' I thought viciously. They'd obviously brought me to this room to be interrogated, (I shuddered at the thought) but it'd been at least six hours, and no one had yet to show up. The waiting was killing me. My body was so tense from the knowledge that my interrogator could walk through the door any minute that I felt nauseous. What was taking them so long?

So far my only distraction were the batteries in my hand. They looked just like the batteries from home, except the logo was in Japanese. Distractedly, I rolled them on top of the metal table.

As I slowly fiddled with Bater, and Eee (yes I named my batteries, don't judge me) a sneezing fit made me pull away from them. Without my hand guiding their movement, the batteries rolled off the table with a clatter.

Sighing wearily, I slipped out of my chair and began to collect Bater and Eee from their location under the table. It was just my luck that my interrogator chose that minute to walk through the door.

The clang of the lock being undone, and the screech of the door opening startled me so badly that I started abruptly. In the process, I bashed my head on the underside of the table. With a yelp of pain, I curled up into a ball, clutching my head.

After a few seconds of whimpering, I gingerly crawled out from underneath the table and peeked over the rim. The unimpressed expression that met me made me flush in embarrassment.

Still clutching Bater and Eee, I warily sat back down in my chair and observed my unpunctual interrogator. He was a tall, imposing man with strong hard features. Scars ran diagonally down his face, and his long black coat seemed to double his size.

I stared at this monster of a man with what was probably a flabbergasted expression on my face. I knew he was an interrogator, but really, his image was just too perfect for the role. It was actually kind of funny, like he was part of a cheesy movie or something.

The man leaned forward slowly, his eyes not once looking away from me. Then he growled, "Jonzu Fei. I am In Forest Snoring." **[Jones, Fay. I am Morino Ibiki]**

"Ibiki." I repeated hesitantly. Ibiki casually reached into his jacket, then out of nowhere, slammed a kunai on the table with a loud CLANG.

I jumped in shock. He had managed to dig the kunai into the _metal_ table. The message was clear. _Don't F-k with me._

My fingers dug into my palm, and my batteries slipped a bit in my hold due to my moist palms. Shaking nervously, I turned my wide eyed gaze away from the kunai to Ibiki's face. It was still emotionless, blank, almost bored.

The scarred man relaxed his hold on the kunai, and turned his hand palm up. He waited expectantly. Trembling, I dropped Bater and Eee into his hand.

Ibiki drew his hand back and shifted his gaze down to my (now his) batteries. He must not have seen anything amiss, because he carelessly tossed them across the table to me again. I scrambled to catch them before they fell off the table.

Then there was silence...again.

Suddenly, Ibiki snorted. Yes. Snorted. Face cracking into a condescending smirk, the man leaned back in his chair and started to laugh. I of course just stared at him in shock. Slowly Ibiki's laugh ceased, but he was still chuckling when he slipped towards me a folder.

I carefully opened it to see...a menu? Yup. A menu. At least, I was pretty sure it was a menu. The pages were laminated, and filled with pictures of food. I saw different types of meat, sushi, noodles...etc. My mouth would have watered if it wasn't already so dry from dehydration.

When I looked back up at the scarred man, he grinned cheerfully at me and said, "Hurry, choose." **[Go on, choose.]**

I couldn't believe it. After who knows how long of starving me of food or water, he was casually giving me a menu? Actually, if I was making an educated guess, seeing as I was still alive, and relatively well for being dehydrated, I would guess that I had been locked up for about 2 days.

I didn't care about food. No, all I wanted at the moment was a glass of water. So, shifting nervously, I whispered softly in Japanese, "Water?"

Ibiki stared at me blankly. Then started to laugh all over again. 'What is wrong with this man?'

Grinning, which contorted his scars awkwardly, he said, "Ah, I see. You choose something else." **[Ah. I see. Alright, choose something else.]**

I turned back to the menu, and pointed to the first item that looked peanut free. Ramen.

Nodding, Ibiki suddenly barked out, "Go", and to my surprise a ninja dropped down from the ceiling and casually strolled out the door. 'When the hell did he come in?' I thought hysterically. My eyes frantically flittered from one corner of the ceiling to another. As far as I could tell, there wasn't anyone else (other than Ibiki) in the room.

With my chakra free, I probably could have sensed him, but unfortunately with the paper bracelet I was unable to. However, Ibiki's chakra I could feel very easily as he made no effort to hide his. It felt cool and sharp, much like a knife.

A few minutes passed in silence. I avoided Ibiki's gaze and instead fidgeted with Bater and Eee.

The door creaked open and I thought I would cry in relief as I saw a glass of water and a bowl of ramen come through the door. Oh, and a ninja too, but I didn't care about him.

The ninja set the ramen and water down on the table in front of us. I immediately reached for the water but as soon as my fingers wrapped around the cool glass, the water suddenly disappeared.

Blinking in confusion, I stared at my empty fingers. I looked up to see Ibiki nonchalantly holding _my_ water. Mine! Slowly, I reached out for the glass again, but the man pulled the cup out of my reach, his expression still completely relaxed and calm.

Then...Then! He raised the glass up to his lips and tauntingly gulped down every last drop. My eyes dulled as I saw the glass slowly empty. My arm fell limply back onto the table.

When Ibiki finished drinking, he set the glass down. He then smirked.

...

...

...

...

My mind went white with rage and humiliation. 'How dare he rub it in! How dare he taunt me!' I thought furiously. The next thing I knew, I had grabbed the glass cup from the table and hurled it at Ibiki's head. He dodged of course.

With tears of frustration shimmering in my eyes, I started to swear viciously in French, Mandarin, English and Spanish. But when I ran out of curse words, and when I realized that Ibiki wasn't affected at all because he couldn't understand a damn thing I was saying, I took a leaf out of the preteen's books.

"Baka!" (idiot) I screamed as I hurled Bater at him.

"Temee!" (bastard) I shrieked as Eee flew from my hand.

"Dobe!" (loser) I yelled while pointing an accusing finger at him.

Finally out of breath and projectiles to throw, I ceased my swearing and instead slumped down into my chair again breathing heavily before a coughing fit hit me. After a minute of hacking my lungs out, I finally managed to calm down a bit.

There was a pregnant pause.

The infuriating man started to laugh AGAIN.

I dug my nails into my palm to keep myself from flying off the handle once more.

Finally when Ibiki finished laughing, the man looked pointedly at me, then at the ramen. Warily, I reached for the bowl. My hand touched the rim of the bowl. I tugged the ramen an inch towards me. I pulled the ramen all the way towards me. I sniffed the ramen hesitantly to make sure it wasn't poisoned...'Wait. Why can't I smell anything?'

Once again, I felt my face flush red with fury as I saw that my ramen was a fake. It was one of those plastic dishes that restaurants sometimes put on display in their windows to tempt customers. I'd been so distracted by the water and the fear of Ibiki stealing my food that I hadn't even noticed!

'What the hell is wrong with this man? Is he torturing me or something?' I thought to myself. Then I paused as I realized that I was right. He _was_ torturing me; with mind f-k no less.

Groaning wearily, I buried my head in my arms. If I had a white flag, I would have been waving it.

The next thing I heard was the rustle of clothing before something was placed on the table. Slowly, I raised my head up and peeked at what it was. It was my old clothes and my favorite neon pink crossbody bag!

Gasping in surprise, I reached for my bag first to look inside. My iphone, wallet and keys were all there! Eagerly, I first reached for my phone and turned it on, but slumped in dejection as I saw that the battery was dead.

Next I reached for my wallet, and found that everything but my ID was still there. My ID, I saw was in Ibiki's hand. Said man was curiously studying my picture. I couldn't help but to wince at this. Driver license pictures are never flattering.

Tossing my ID to the side, Ibiki leaned forward and plucked my phone out of my hand despite my (F-k you) glare. He then placed my phone, screen up, on the table. Reaching once more into his coat, he pulled out four more phones and set them on the table in a neat line. I blinked in surprise.

For a minute I was delighted to see that these phones were companies from back home. Two Samsungs, an Apple, and a Blackberry... 'Maybe I'm not in a different world like I thought!' However, these ideas quickly faded with the appearance of four photos.

Ibiki laid these pictures one after another in a straight line, right above each phone. I felt my face drain of color at what I saw.

The first picture, above one of the Samsungs was a picture of a man in his thirties lying on his back. His handsome face was chalky pale, made more obvious by his dark hair, and his hazel eyes were open, but glazed over. He was dead. A corpse.

I bit my lower lip to keep in a cry of shock. I'd never seen a dead body before, not even in a picture. What really rattled me were his clothes. He was wearing a white Ralph Lauren polo shirt and pair of khaki shorts. There was no doubt, this man was from my world.

The next picture, above the other Samsung, was of a young African American woman. She was wearing a blue dress. She too was lying on her back with glazed brown eyes. Dead.

I was starting to see a pattern.

The next photo above the iphone was of a teenage boy around my age. He wore a Seattle Sounders jersey and jeans. The boy had blond hair and glazed brown eyes. Dead as well.

Finally, the picture above the Blackberry showed a slightly overweight man in his mid to late fifties. A blue and gray button-up shirt and jeans were his outfit. If you haven't guessed already, he too was dead.

My mind was running crazily with ideas. One thing was for sure. It seemed that I wasn't the only one who was transported to this world during the earthquake. 'But how am I the only one alive?' That was easily answered when I remembered the crushing pain I'd felt the first time in this world.

'I was lucky. If Death God hadn't found me, I'd also be a picture and a phone.'

"Oh God." I whispered, tears dribbling down my face. I felt so sorry for these strangers. How must they have screamed and writhed in pain before dying? I could all too easily imagine the scene. It didn't help that three of the four had pale skin. The red splotches across their face was a clear indicator of broken blood vessels.

Compared to them, I was lucky - blessed even. Steeling my resolve, I wiped away my tears and looked up to Ibiki again.

The scarred ninja was carefully studying me. His dark eyes evaluating and analyzing my reaction, my personality, my feelings. I felt like a specimen under the microscope.

Carefully, Ibiki pointed to the first picture. "Name." He growled.

Shaking my head, I whispered in English, "I don't know."

Ibiki pointed to the next picture. "Name."

I shook my head again. This went on until I shook my head no to the last picture.

Slowly, Ibiki exhaled, before suddenly a kunai flew past my face, nicking my cheek. Blood welled up from the cut before dribbling down.

With a gasp of surprise, my hand flew up to cup my cheek protectively as I stared at Ibiki with wide shocked eyes.

Said man pointed to the first picture again. "Name." He growled.

My eyes narrowed to slits as I snarled at him in English, "I. Don't. Know."

Ibiki's face, which had been a mask of irritation suddenly smoothed out to an apathetic expression, then a thoughtful expression as he studied me. I got the feeling that this had all been an experiment of some sort, and Ibiki had gotten all the data he needed.

Suddenly, with a flick of his wrist, he was holding four driver license. The scarred man slid them over to me. Studying the pictures and information of the strangers, I sighed before pointing to the first man.

"Russo, David." I told him.

The ninja who had fetched me the fake ramen and water scribbled something down on a scroll. I blinked in surprise at this. I hadn't even noticed that the second man had somehow managed set up a small desk and a chair. Heck, I hadn't even realized he had still been in the room.

I jabbed a finger to the second picture. "Crear, Amanda."

Scribbling from the ninja again.

The next person, the boy around my age, was one, "Petrov, Mikhail."

The last person was, "Cross, Benjamin."

While I was stewing in my own depressed emotions at the death of these strangers, who now had names, Ibiki pulled out something again from his coat. At that point, I wouldn't have been surprised to see the man pull out a whale. It sure seemed spacious in there.

This time, the water stealing bastard was holding a scroll. My face paled at the sight. It wasn't any scroll, it was _my_ scroll. The scroll I kept under my pillow because I didn't want anyone to see my sketches or seal attempts.

I tensed as Ibiki unfurled the scroll to first reveal a sketch of the Seattle skyline. He paused, observing my reaction. Though I tried to appear emotionless and calm, I knew it was a lost cause. He then unfurled the scroll some more to show sketches of random things from home: a piano, my dog, trees, Starbucks, an American flag...etc.

Finally, he got to the end of the scroll which had what I really didn't want him to see - my first translation seal attempt written in Chinese. Thanks to the fact that the Japanese language uses kanji, they would probably be able to get the gist of the words in my seal.

'I should have erased it.' I thought weakly.

Gulping, my seal came into view. I flinched at the knowing gaze of Ibiki.

After a half hearted attempt at looking innocent, I sighed in defeat and slowly reached for the bandages on my right hand.

x

x

x

**A/N: First of all to all my reviews, subscribers, alerts, thank you so much for your time and support. Next, i would like to answer a few questions about pairings.**

**Oh, and I hope Ibiki was in character. I based it a bit on Karin's interrogation. **

**After reading your opinions and thinking carefully about it myself, I have decided on a pairing. However, it will be a secret. You wont know until Fay knows, and that wont be for a very long time. In fact, the pairing will hardly appear at all in the story. It will only be important at the very end. So to those who worry or dislike pairings, do not worry, you'll barely notice it. To those who wanted or hated a certain pairing, I think you'll be satisfied/okay with who I chose. **


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Explanations and Despair

**[Brackets]** = Translation for reader's benefit

'Single quotations_' _= Thoughts

_Italics = Untranslated Japanese_

**Bold = Memories**

While unwrapping my hand, I tried numerous explanations in my head. How was I going to explain to him that while I could understand the language, I couldn't speak it?

Finally, the grimy bandages fell onto the table and for the first time in about two days, I looked upon my tattoo. The seal had faded away a lot more than I would have suspected for only a couple of days. It was now only a shadow of its former self.

Seeing Ibiki's impatience, I held out my palm for him to see. Said man's brows furrowed as he grabbed my hand and leaned forward to stare at my faded eagle. His coarse and iron grip made me flinch internally. If he wasn't careful, I would be bruised, but I suspected that he didn't really care.

Slowly, Ibiki looked up from my tattoo. There was a look of annoyance and frustration on his face as he raised one eyebrow in disbelief.

"This mark is seal?" **[This mark is the seal?]** He growled with a note of incredulity.

I nodded, then opened my mouth to explain to him that the tattoo had been darker before, but was now faded. However, I paused as I tried to remember the meager amount of words I'd learned the last two weeks. Nothing in my vocabulary was usable for an explanation.

Sighing, I moved on to another topic. Pointing to my ear, I gave Ibiki a thumbs up. I then pointed to my mouth, and shook my head. The scarred man was silent as he processed my attempts at communication. He was a smart man, I was confident he could figure my predicament out.

After a minute of contemplation, Ibiki frowned at me as he slowly asked, "Your ear hear mine language, but brain sound is yours?" **[Your ears hears my language, but your brain hears your own?]**

I almost clapped my hands in glee that Ibiki had managed to understand so quickly! 'I knew he was a smart man!'

Nodding enthusiastically, I grinned brightly while praising him in English, "You got it! I knew you weren't all muscles and frowns you Sherlock! My big scary sadistic genius!" I was more than a little crazy from exhaustion and fever...

Ibiki wasn't pleased with my slap happy attitude, so like every good old dangerous mind-f-king interrogator, he pulled out a pair of pliers and twirled it expertly; I flinched and immediately clammed up.

Still playing with the pliers, Ibiki asked me, "Where you learn this?" **[Where did you learn to do this?]**

"Hokage-sama seal." I replied promptly.

For the first time, I saw true genuine surprise on Ibiki's face, but it didn't last long. Just as quickly an expression of suspicion appeared.

"You learn to seal from look at Hokage-sama's?" **[You learned how to seal by looking at Hokage-sama's?]** Not knowing what else to say, I nodded affirmative.

Carefully leaning back, Ibiki frowned minutely as he asked, "No person teach you seal before?" **[No one taught you how to seal before?]** I again nodded.

I could tell that Ibiki didn't really believe me. His skepticism was practically intoxicating the air around us. However, he changed the topic.

"Your people they are?" **[Are these your people?]** Ibiki asked while nonchalantly tapping the face of the teenage boy. I couldn't help but frown at the clear lack of empathy from the man.

Scowling lightly, I coughed before nodding.

"Where you from?" **[Where are you from?]**

"Seattle, King County, Washington, Pacific Northwest, United States of America, North America, Earth, Milky Way." Then I huffed and crossed my arms at Ibiki.

Apparently my attempted bravado was amusing because Ibiki just smiled nastily at me before asking again, "Where you from?"

I could tell that if I didn't answer seriously, we'd probably be there all day. This realization sapped the strength and fire out of me. With a sigh, my shoulders slumped and I rubbed my eyes wearily. My dehydration and fever were getting to me. 'I'm tired. I'm thirsty. I want to go home.'

"Seattle," I managed to mumble.

Ibiki sharply demanded, "Map!" while holding out his hand expectantly. The note-taking ninja on the sidelines quickly handed my interrogator a scroll. With a blur of motion, too fast for me to see, Ibiki cleared the table and unfurled the map of his world.

"Shiato is where?" **[Where is Seattle?]**

"Seattle." I unconsciously corrected. Ibiki crumbled the iron pliers like play dough with his hand, then asked me again gently, "Where?"

His world apparently was not as well traveled as my own as I noticed that the map showed only part of a continent. Not knowing what else to do, I shook my head forlornly.

"Not on map?"

"Yes."

There was silence at my admission. My world was not on his map, so of course I couldn't show him where I was from. There was no more I could tell him about that.

The next half hour or so was peppered with dozens of yes/no questions that I answered automatically as best as I could.

**"**Are you danger to foliage?" **[Are you a danger to Konoha?] **I didn't really know what he meant by that. 'Are these people super environmentalist? Well, I'll have to be careful about cutting down trees then.' Cocking my head slightly, I answered, "No."

"Snakes like?" **[Do you like snakes?]** I grimaced at that, wondering why in the world he would ask such a thing.

"No."

"Which is favorite: Sasuke, Sakura, Naruto?" **[Who is your favorite: Sasuke, Sakura, Naruto?"]**

**"**Huh?"

"You do chakra before come to here?" **[Have you used chakra before arriving here?]**

"No."

"These people are friend, family?" He asked while pointing to the pictures again. I shook my head, "No."

"Are you ninja?"

"No."

"Person you ever have killed?" **[Have you ever killed a person?]**

"No."

"Are you civilian?"

"Yes."

This went on for quite a while until he finally asked me, "how you got here, you know?" **[Do you know how you got here?]**

**"**No."

Again, Ibiki seemed suspicious at my answer, but decided not to confront me on it. With a grunt, he smoothly stood up, rolled up the scroll, cleared the table, and left with the note-taking ninja. I was left sitting completely lost and taken aback by his abrupt departure.

"Now what?" I croaked to myself.

x

It took a while, but someone did finally return to the room and lead me back to my cell. I might have put up a fuss when I realized that I would be shoved back into the pit of doom, but when I saw the large pitcher of water and bowl of food, I all too happily trotted back inside my prison.

Water never tasted so good. It was lucky that I'd read so many medical articles. I forced myself to take small sips after the initial first few desperate gulps. Otherwise, I'd have probably upchucked the precious liquid.

The bowl contained rice gruel. Normally, I would hate to consume such a bland, slimy dish, but I was too hungry to care. Plus, on my starved weak stomach, rice gruel was probably for the best.

Two more days inched past, I could tell now as I was fed twice a day. My body became pitifully weak from the lack of substantial meals, and sickness. I couldn't even sit up without becoming desperately dizzy and nauseous. My sore throat had swelled, and I was sure that it was infected. Swollen lymph nods, loss of voice, deep hacking cough, pain in the chest, chills, fevers...It seemed that they didn't want me to perish though, as on my estimated sixth day in the cell, Ren came to visit me.

His face was pinched into an expression of deep disapproval as his green chakra glowed above my chest. Slowly, the warmth eased my chills and my fever. My sore throat dulled, and the pain in my chest faded. I still had a cough, but it wasn't as bad as before and my nausea had disappeared as well.

"Ren. Thank you." I whispered softly.

Shaking his head sadly, Ren patted me on the shoulder, and left.

The next day, a man in one of the gray doughboy uniforms leaned his head into the cell and called out my name and something else I couldn't understand. He had the most peculiar bright purple hair.

I didn't know when it had happened exactly, as people didn't make it a habit to speak to me here, but I'd lost the translation spell. It had completely faded away. The eagle was nonexistent.

Stumbling up, I half crawled my way out of the hell hole. The ninja seeing my weakness, bent down and scooped me up into his arms, ignoring my smell and dirt.

'Nice man. I like him.' I thought to myself before closing my eyes and falling asleep. However, I wasn't asleep for long. In a few minutes, I was awakened by the clang of a door. I blearily opened my eyes to see that I was back in the off white interrogation room. Along with Ibiki and the ninja who was carrying me, there were two other people - Inoichi and Hokage-sama.

I was gently lowered into one of the metal chairs where I sat trembling from pure exhaustion.

Seeing Hokage-sama open his mouth to speak, I quickly cut him off by holding up a palm. My right palm to be specific.

Ibiki leaned forward to grasp my hand and stare at the empty palm blankly.

_"You can't understand us anymore?" _

I shrugged to show I had no idea what he had asked, though I had a very good guess.

A frown, then a mumbled conversation between the three men. I heard a few words that I recognized: seal, chakra, translation, Inoichi.

They finally seemed to come to a consensus as they fell silent. I shifted nervously at the three piercing gazes. Finally, Inoichi took a step towards me while saying, _"I know you can not understand me, but I still feel obligated to explain. I will now enter your mind and search for four things: where you are from, who you are, how you got here, and what you want. You will not feel pain like the last time as your chakra pathways have healed strong enough in the last three weeks to be able to accept the intrusion. _

Oh how I wished that the translation seal had not faded.

Seeing Inoichi come towards me, I yelped and tried to scramble out of my chair away from the man. I didn't want to be hurt again. The last time it had felt as if my blood was boiling. However, the ninja who had brought me to the room (whom I'd truthfully kind of forgotten about) grabbed my shoulder and held me down.

'I change my mind. Despicable eggplant head! I hate you!'

As Inoichi's hand cupped my face, I immediately stiffened. Suddenly, I was plunged into darkness. Then I was pulled into one of my memories where strangely enough, I observed from a third person point of view.

**I am three years old and crying after a nightmare. My little form runs across the hall into another room where two people, my parents, are sleeping. My Mom sits up, her wavy brown hair all over the place as she blearily looks down at my sobbing figure. She coos gently, her green eyes gentle as she picks me up and tucks me under the sheets. Sandwiched between my parents, I fall asleep to the tune of my Papa's silly French lullaby. **

**I am five years old running in the park. Holding a bug-catching net much too large for me, I am chasing my dark haired, blue eyed Papa. He lets himself be caught. Gleefully, I clonk the net over his head. **

**I am seven years old and peering out into the living room. It is early in the morning, but both Mom and Papa are awake and staring intently at the television. It shows the image of a plane going into a skyscraper. 9/11. Mom is crying and moaning. A women is waving a shirt out the window.**

**I am balancing a pencil on my finger as I half listen to a lecture in health class. My friend Emily snickers as one of the boys wince at an explanation of the birthing process. She texts me something, and I peer down at my phone to read her message. **

**I am at Seatac airport on my way to Japan. I sleepily watch a jumbo jet take off. **

**I am in a museum in Hiroshima watching a morbid, depressing, graphic video about the nuclear bomb. The scene of a huge mushroom cloud, then a destroyed city, then an image of people with pus and blisters and melted skin, leave me pale and solemn. **

**I am sobbing at my Grandpa's funeral. Grand-maman is moaning and weeping in French about stupid American men leaving her all alone in a foreign country. **

**I am taking a walk with my parents on a nice sunny day. I see a orange butterfly in the distance and hurry forward to get a better view, but the ground starts to shake under me, and I clutch the ground in hopes of stilling the trembling earth. I hear Mom scream, "Fay! Tree!" and I glance up to see a huge evergreen tumbling down on me. I then...**

Suddenly the image froze, flickered, then blacked out. Then, I was floating in darkness, staring at a huge stone door that was padlocked with chains.

Inoichi materializes without warning next to me. His blue eyes were wide with shock, and carefully, he turned to look at me, his expression intrigued.

"You're in my head." I stated. My voice surprisingly calm.

"I am." Inoichi replied.

"I can understand you."

"The mind has no language." He replied.

Still staring at me with a look of intense curiosity on his face, he suddenly stated, "You're not from this world."

"I'm not." I agreed softly, turning away from him. His staring unnerved me.

Looking up, I glanced at the locked door.

"What is that?" I asked, my voice still devoid of any emotions.

The blond man frowned minutely, before answering, "It's a repressed memory."

While I was still trying to wrap my brain around the idea of a repressed memory, Inoichi made his way towards the locked door, his hands outstretched.

"Wait! What are you doing!" I called after him frantically. I didn't want him to open the door. I didn't want him to let out whatever it was that was locked inside.

As Inoichi's hands touched the door, the chains evaporated.

"NO! PLEASE!" I screeched, so irrevocably terrified of the idea of opening the door.

"I DON'T WANT TO KNOW! DAMN IT BOAR MAN!"

The blond man ignored my desperate pleas and firmly pushed. The memory started back where it stopped.

**I hear Mom scream, "Fay! Tree!" and I glance up to see a huge evergreen tumbling down on me. I then...freeze in horror at my impending death, my green eyes wide with surprise. Something crashes into me from my left, and I am thrown off the sidewalk and away from the tree. I roll a couple of times before hitting the back tires of a car stopped in the streets. Gingerly, I sit up and blink the tears out of my eyes as I grit my teeth and deal with the pain. Mom is screaming and crying as she pulls frantically on the tree. Slowly, I stagger up and shuffle towards the evergreen tree that should have crushed me. The earth is still rolling underneath me, hindering my movements.**

**I see and smell blood. I see a mop of dark hair. "PAPA!" I screech as I lurch towards him. Just six steps and I would be at his side. One, Two...and my feet hits grass, my body seizes up, and I fall to the ground writhing in pain as I feel fire in my veins and a terrible pressure. I black out.**

**I wake up. I scream and cry weakly in my pain. Death God appears at my side.**

With a gasp, I was snapped back into reality. Eyes wide with terror, tears poured freely down my face. Things began to make sense.

It was true that I had never experienced violence in my life, but I had always wanted to be a doctor, and I'd never been very squeamish. Heck, frog and cat dissection hadn't even phased me. However, my intense reaction to Death God's injuries, to the blood specifically, seemed to be because of my repressed memories.

But my seemingly new phobia of blood aside, I had a more serious issue. 'Papa. Papa. Papa. Papa. Papa.' The silent mantra repeated dully in my head.

For the next few minutes, all I could do was sit rigidly in my seat muttering in English, "I need to get back home. I need to make sure he's alright. I need to make sure he's okay. I need to get back home."

Stumbling up from my seat, I staggered my way towards the door. The only thing I wanted right then was to get out of the room, and find the place where I'd appeared. I believed that somehow if I just got there, everything would work out.

It seemed that Inoichi had already explained to everyone else who I was, and where I was from, during the few minutes I had been in shock. Their intense, curious gaze were an obvious indicator of their knowledge.

My hands finally met the cold metal of the door handle. I hastily pulled, but found it locked. By then, my tears had ceased. Sometimes, when emotions run too high, your eyes become as dry as a desert. Wheezing heavily, I tugged repeatedly at the heavy door, but when it refused to budge, I spiraled into a full blown panic attack.

Screaming angrily, I kicked and hammered the door with the palm of my hands. The room was filled with the sound of scratching as I scrabbled frantically at the opening of the door with my blunt dirty nails.

'Open. God damn it, open.' I moaned internally while externally, I hyperventilated.

The ninja who had carried me to the room (Eggplant man as I dubbed him) grabbed my shoulder and sharply tugged me away from the door. He was gentle despite my wild thrashing. I suspected he got a few scratches down his arm for his efforts.

With ease, Eggplant man slung me over his shoulders and tossed me back into the chair. Then he slapped me sharply across the face. The smack of flesh on flesh rang throughout the room. I finally went silent, more from surprise than anything else. No one had ever struck me before.

Slowly, my mind calmed down and I was left with a dull ringing in my ears. A haze had enveloped my brain. I was probably in shock.

Hokage-sama cleared his throat and gently called my name. When I managed to crawl past all the grey fog in my mind and focus my attention on him, I saw for once the kind old man he was. His eyes were no longer cold and suspicious, but instead gentle and curious.

Once again tears welled up in my eyes and spilled over as I whispered, "I need to go home."

_"There, there now. Crying won't help you will it?" _

Though I didn't understand what he said, the gentle soothing voice made me unable to disagree. I nodded and accepted the slab of clean bandage Inoichi held out for me. He obviously didn't have any tissues.

x

**A/N: And that, my wonderful readers, is the end of chapter 8. Sorry, this chapter was a bit boring and angsty wasn't it... I promise next chapter will be much better! **

**First of all, thank you to all my amazing reviewers! I got over 30 reviews for chapter 7. I still can't believe it. Also, thank you all for helping me break 100 reviews! Thanks Thomas Drovin for being my 100th reviewer! As a gift to you all, I wrote a short extra piece from Ibiki's point of view. Enjoy!**

x

**POV: Ibiki**

"Ibiki. You've probably noticed the newest addition to the T&I?"

Ibiki raised one eyebrow at the question. "Of course." He replied, stoically ignoring the wry smile that curled one corner of the Hokage's mouth.

"Hm. She's a special case this one isn't she?" The Hokage murmured with a sigh, massaging his forehead. "I'm getting too old for this."

Ibiki couldn't help but snort at this admission. The Hokage made it a point to mention his age every time something happened. However, the Hokage had a point, the mystery female was a special case.

Frowning slightly, Ibiki glanced down at the scroll in his hand. This scroll contained everything about the girl. It had her height (a puny 153 centimeters, practically a midget), her name (Jonzu, Fei), her age (18), her fears (spiders, blood, violence, knives)...etc.

She was one of the "Chakraless" that had appeared a few weeks ago. The whole situation was strange to the scarred man. Somehow, these 'Chakraless' people just mysteriously appeared around Konoha. And not only that, they all appeared on the same day as well.

None of the border patrols had seen these intruders either. It was as if they materialized from thin air. The strangest part was every single one of these people had been completely and absolutely drained of chakra when found. Only one, the girl, had appeared within the walls of Konoha. As such, she was the only one found in time for a chakra infusion. The others had been found scattered around near Konoha.

Worried that there might be more of these strange bodies lying about, an ANBU squad had been sent out to scour Fire Country, but nothing had been found. For their efforts, an ANBU had been seriously injured by accident during a surprise attack. Ironically, the ANBU injured had been none other than the one who had found the girl.

Personally, Ibiki was of the mind that these people had tried some sort of seriously dangerous jutsu, and it had gone wrong. Perhaps a transportation technique.

"Ibiki. I want you to keep this at Level 1." The Hokage firmly ordered.

"She knows how to manipulate chakra though." Ibiki stated.

"Yes, but she's still closer to a civilian than an academy student."

Ibiki nodded, accepting the Hokage's orders. Level 1 barely gave him any leeway, but it didn't matter, he always enjoyed a challenge. T&I had five levels of torture designed for different victims. Level 1 was for civilians, and clearance was only mind torture, mild starvation and dehydration, and intimidation.

Level 2 was usually for academy students. Along with the same clearance of Level 1, it also gave T&I permission to use actual physical torture, though it wasn't allowed to leave permanent damage.

Level 3 was for Genin. Level 4 for Chuunin. And Level 5 was for Jounin. There was also Level 0, which was for S-rank, and ANBU or higher, but that wasn't officially on the records.

A smirk bloomed on Ibiki's face at the glorious memories from Level 0 assignments.

x

Two days had passed since the girl had been thrown into one of the pit cells. She'd coped pretty well for a disgustingly weak little twig. From the cameras in the cell, Ibiki had already gained a good grasp on the personality of the girl.

She was a planner, a logical thinker who was always careful. This he surmised from her sleeping position, her insomnia and her lack of screaming. Also, her body was frail and prone to sickness.

When she was relocated to the white room for interrogation, Ibiki watched her for eight hours as she waited. The whole time, he carefully filed away her every action. She took the batteries out of the clock programed to tick louder than a normal clock, and then proceeded to play with the batteries.

Ibiki jotted down problem solver in his head.

When Ibiki pulled out a kunai and slammed it onto the table, she flinched and drew back sharply. Ibiki dully noted that even though he had drawn the kunai slower than usual, she had still failed to react to his aggressive move. A shinobi would have flinched, twitched or tensed at the moment Ibiki's hands moved towards his weapon. Clear evidence of being a civilian mentally checked off.

When he had pushed and pulled, prodded and stabbed, her emotions in every way possible, she finally snapped and threw a hissy fit. Slow to anger, but earnest while enraged was checked off.

All in all, Ibiki was enjoying himself. Her emotions were amusing, her reactions even more so. Mentally messing with her was like kicking a cute little kitten. 'Ah,' Ibiki thought happily, 'Anko's going to be so jealous.'

x

x

x

**A/N: Once again, thank you all! **


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Attempts and Reunion

'Single quotations_' _= Thoughts

_Italics = Untranslated Japanese_

x

x

After I'd calmed down enough, the men discussed among each other. Once they came to a consensus, Eggplant man suddenly swooped me up into his arms. I bit him.

I think I hurt Eggplant man's feelings.

Yes, it was unsanitary, rather unnecessary and uncivilized, but I still hadn't forgiven him from slapping me earlier. Plus, I was in a terribly foul mood. Despite the fact that my little pearly whites dug into the fabric of his uniform, he didn't drop me, nor put me down. He did scowl and frown, but I think it was more because Ibiki was laughing at him.

Talking about Ibiki, the scarred man easily opened the door that I'd fought against. The bastard even had the nerve to smirk at me superiorly as he held the door open for Hokage-sama and Eggplant man (who was holding me). I gave him the stink-eye. If I hadn't been so emotional and exhausted, I'd have probably refrained from purposefully antagonizing everyone...but well, like I said, I was in a terribly foul mood.

I don't know what it was about Eggplant man, but whenever he carried me, I almost instantly fall asleep. Perhaps it was the way he walked? Most likely, it was because I was poop dead tired.

x

When I woke up again, I found myself in my old hospital room. I was hooked up to an IV pole, and my wounds were bandaged off. I'd also been given a change of clothes and...someone had also given me a sponge bath? That was the only explanation for how I was so clean.

My face blushed bright red at my realization, but my embarrassment quickly faded at my memories of Papa. All the blood drained from my face. Pale as a sheet, I silently studied the point where the IV went into my arm.

"I need to get back home."

Since I'd arrived in this world I'd been so occupied with adapting, and learning the truthfully fascinating culture here, that I really didn't think much of finding a way home. It was more that I forced myself to not think about it. Despite all the people I'd met and the situations I'd experienced, I'd somehow still half believed that I was either dead or in a coma. But, since the release of my repressed memory, I actually remembered the moment I arrived in this world. It had been on my third step towards Papa that I had somehow...slid out of my universe and into this one. Why it actually happened, I had no idea, but at the very least, I knew when and how.

There was still a voice in the back of my mind that whispered that this could all be a figment of my imagination; however, not even a lucid dream could be so vivid. Also, if I was in a coma and this was all a dream, it didn't make sense that I would be in a country where everyone spoke Japanese. I'd been to Japan, true, but I'd also been to England, Ireland, France, China, South Korea, Australia, Spain...etc. My family had always loved to travel. I just couldn't imagine why my inner consciousness would choose Japanese, of all languages. Not to mention...ninjas.

My inner thoughts occupied so much of my concentration that I didn't notice the door being opened. Only when I heard the door shut did I realize someone had entered the room.

Immediately, my head snapped up. Green eyes wide with surprise, I stared at the figure. At first, I flinched harshly and defensively wrapped my arms around myself. This was because the figure that entered had a decorated white mask on.

However, my fear quickly changed to shock, then hesitant happiness, as I realized that it wasn't Anbu, but in fact Death God! The slippery feel of his chakra was definitely his, plus, I recognized his mask. He seemed to be fully healed as I saw no obvious sign of injury.

That was about when I noticed that my chakra was back to normal and flowing throughout my body once again. The horrid paper bracelet was gone. It seemed that I was back to being trusted (relatively).

"_Come."_ Death God commanded while beckoning me forward. I didn't understand his words, but his body language was unmistakable.

Once I slipped out of my bed, I glanced down at the IV still in my arm. I didn't know what to do with it, so, with a shrug, I screwed my eyes shut and sharply pulled it out. Then, I carefully padded my way over to Death God.

It was the first time I'd stood in the presence of the man. Every time before, I had either been lying down, sitting, or he was the one lying down. He was tall, but probably not as tall as Kakashi, and definitely not as tall as Ibiki. I was a nice even 5 feet tall and I came up to just under his chin. . Judging from that, I would say that he was about 5 feet 9 inches, give or take a inch or two.

Death God reached into his pouch and pulled out the dreaded paper bracelet. 'At least it isn't a knife.'

I couldn't help but to cringe and eye the chakra suppressor unhappily. Nevertheless, I gingerly plucked it from Death God's hand and slipped it on. Then he opened the door, and I inched my way out, extremely aware of Death God's presence right behind me.

It seemed to be still early morning, as nurses and doctors were bustling around, setting things up. As we made our way towards the entrance, one of the nurses stopped us and handed me a pair of slippers. Death God patiently waited for me, to accept the soft cotton footwear and slip them on, before hurrying along.

At the entrance to the hospital, I saw the familiar figures of Ibiki, Inoichi and Hokage-sama. They were clearly waiting for us. At our arrival, Ibiki gave me a snarky grin full of teeth. I stiffened and demurely flittered my gaze away from him. He seemed to be slightly disappointed at my reaction. I thought he perhaps wanted me to challenge him again and give him a glare.

I felt a small rush of triumph at the knowledge that he had failed to receive the response he wanted from me. Mentally, I told myself that I would try my best to be completely emotionless when dealing with him.

Smirking inwardly, I followed the group of ninjas as we made our way off the hospital ground. That was the first time I'd been awake to see outside the hospital, and what a sight it was. It was a strange world, a mix between new and old. Despite the obvious signs of technology (televisions, power lines) there wasn't a single car and the streets were unpaved. It baffled me a bit.

Eyes wide with fascination, my gaze flittered all around as I tried to process the sights. Men and women were setting up stands filled with their wares, and in stark contrast to their normality were the blurred figures of ninjas hopping from roof to roof.

When I realized that everyone was staring at our procession, I couldn't help but to flush with self consciousness and shuffle a minuscule bit closer to Death God. He was the lesser of four evils. Inoichi with his mind reading and blood boiling was on my never-to-go-near list, Ibiki was a sadist, and Hokage-sama seemed too much of a top dog for me to sidle up to.

After a few minutes of walking, I had to pause to catch my breath. I had grown weak during my time spent in the cell. While I recuperated, I wondered why none of the ninjas picked me up and carried me like usual. Not that I was complaining. I didn't enjoy being manhandled all the time.

It took a while, but we finally arrived at our destination. At first, I did not recognize the significance of our location. Then, it occurred to me.

"This is where I arrived!" I exclaimed.

Immediately, I hurried over to the area where I had first stumbled into. Not knowing what else to do, I paced the length of the area. Nothing happened. Undeterred, I next tried walking around a larger portion of the grassy area. Back and forth I walked, my pace became increasingly frantic when nothing happened.

The ninjas just watched me silently.

I tried everything I could. I ran, I jumped, I crawled, I sat, I prayed, I closed my eyes. I even tried tapping my heels together three times. Nothing happened.

Swearing in frustration, I angrily kicked a rock as hard as I could. There was a crack. I broke my toe. With a muffled whimper of pain, I crumpled into a ball, cradling my injury.

Within seconds, Hokage-sama was at my side. He was shaking his head wearily, as he firmly tugged my hands away from my foot. Gently, the old man pulled off my slipper and observed my swollen, purple toe. With a sigh, Hokage-sama made a few hand signs. The next thing I knew, his green glowing hands were hovering over my injury. Before my eyes, I watched as the swelling died down and the purple reverted back to my toe's original tan color. Healing was so cool.

If I wasn't so upset at my failure to return home, I would have probably been more excited at the magical sight of healing. However, all I could do was watch with faint curiosity before depression took over once again.

Hokage-sama helped me up, and gently steered me away from the clearing. At first, I tried to resist him, not wanting to give up yet, but for an old man, he had a strong grip. I soon gave up on protesting, and let myself be herded away.

My group made our way back to the hospital in silence. All of them seemed to be lost in their own thoughts. Of them all, only Inoichi periodically glanced at me with extremely curious eyes. I knew that what he saw in my head had fascinated him, he wanted to know more.

It took twice as long to make our way back, simply because I was pouting and dragging my feet. Childish, I know. Along the way, Ibiki split away from the group, leaving in a swirl of leaves. Of course, I was the only one startled by his abrupt departure.

'Damn ninjas only exist to give me heart attacks.'

When the four of us made it back to the hospital entrance, Hokage-sama paused at the gate, thoughtfully pulling on his beard. Abruptly, he bent down and grabbed my wrist. My initial intent was to squawk in distress and flitter away, but luckily I refrained myself.

To Inoichi and my shock, Hokage-sama pulled off the paper bracelet. I was flabbergasted!

I looked up at Hokage-sama nervously, while self-consciously rubbing my bare wrist. Said old man just smiled gently at me and patted me on the head. While his wizened hand still rested on top of my noggin, it suddenly flared blue. Immediately, I stiffened as I felt warm fiery chakra flow throughout me briefly, before fading. I didn't know what he did to me...I didn't feel any different.

Despite my questioning look, Hokage-sama instead just meandered off into the distance. I watched his back disappear into the crowd with a bemused expression on my face. When I glanced up at Inoichi, I was slightly amused to see the same expression on his face as well. Death God, thanks to his mask was emotionless.

Inoichi sighed wearily, and turned to resume our journey back to my room.

When Inoichi opened the door of my room, I was shocked and delighted to see the people inside. It was Kakashi and the others!

Smiling happily, I edged past Inoichi into the room.

"Naruto! Sakura! Sasuke! Kakashi!" I greeted.

I faltered in my steps when I processed the silent reception. Kakashi was staring at me intently. Sakura was looking me up and down worriedly. Sasuke was frowning darkly as he eyed me through the corner of his eyes. And Naruto...Naruto just stood there in the middle of the room.

The blond was looking down at his feet. I couldn't tell his expression as his face was shadowed.

"Naruto?" I asked carefully. His reaction scared me the most as it was so different from his usual self.

Slowly, the blond's face rose, and I saw his expression. There was a look of utter heartbreak on his face. His blue eyes were brimmed with tears.

"Fei no nee-chan!" He blubbered, his face screwing up in agony. There was even snot running down his nose.

Suddenly, there was a blur of orange. The next thing I knew, I had to regain my balance as a orange clad mini ninja was latched onto me. Bawling his eyes out, Naruto smeared tears and snot onto my collar bone.

I blinked in shock. Not knowing what else to do, I patted the blond on the back gently, while giving the remaining ninja's a pleading look.

Sighing, Sakura stalked up to Naruto, and slapped the back of his head. I noticed that her strike was uncharacteristically soft compared to other days. Immediately, Naruto let go of me and instead curled into a ball while rubbing his head.

"_Ouch. Sakura-chan." _He whined.

"_Now, now Naruto. I know you're happy to see Fei, but let's let her sit down first."_ Kakashi said while gesturing towards my bed. He gave me a pointed look.

I nodded to show I understood. As swiftly as my weakened body would let me, I dragged myself over to my bed. Gingerly, I climbed up onto it, and with a huff of relief, I sank down into the pillows - using one as a back rest in order to sit upright.

Sasuke had fetched some tissues from the bathroom and wordlessly handed them to me. I gave him a beaming smile of thanks as I quickly accepted them. Scrunching up my nose, I mopped the mess off my collarbone as best as I could. Once done, I held the tissue with two fingers while looking around for the nearest trash can. Thankfully, Sakura noticed my predicament, and she gingerly took the tissues from me and hurriedly threw them away.

I noticed then that during the time I was distracted with getting off Naruto's tears and mucus, a confrontation had broken out. The blond was scowling furiously at Inoichi and Death God, a kunai gripped in his hand.

"_Temee! What did you guys do to Nee-chan, huh?"_ Naruto snarled.

I would have leapt out of my bed to pull Naruto back, but luckily, Kakashi had everything under control. The silver haired man was lazily holding onto the back of Naruto's jumpsuit as said blond whined and growled as he fought to scamper away from the hold.

"_Let me go Kakashi-sensei! I'm going to teach these guys a lesson. No one messes with my friends!"_

"_Mah, mah. Naruto, I like your loyalty, but this is really unnecessary."_ Kakashi sighed.

"Naruto! No. Kunai, no!" I begged him with my meager Japanese.

"_Naruto, enough." _Sasuke added, though I noticed that he too was sending a hostile look towards Inoichi and Death God.

"_Stop it, Naruto."_ Ordered Sakura, while giving the two older men a disapproving look.

Finally, Naruto pouted angrily, and reluctantly stowed away his kunai. I sighed in relief. Still eyeing Inoichi and Death God suspiciously, Naruto sidled up to me, and patted my arm comfortingly.

"_Don't worry Nee-chan. I'll beat up anyone who tries to take you away again."_

I just smiled faintly at the blond, getting the gist of his words.

"_So. She's not a threat like we believed?" _Kakashi asked Inoichi curiosity tinging his tone.

"_Ah. No. Hokage-sama will fill you in later today. It's quite the...interesting life this girl had. Oh, and she can't understand us anymore." _Inoichi replied, while giving me another intrigued and fascinated look.

Kakashi seemed surprised and curious at Inoichi's words as he glanced towards me. Scratching his head thoughtfully, the silver haired man nodded.

Next, Kakashi turned to Death God and asked, _"Hey. Aren't you on a vacation?"_

Death God's chakra spiked slightly. I got the feeling that he was glaring at Kakashi. _"I am. I just had some unfinished business."_

"_Ah. Well have fun with that."_ Kakashi said with a teasing glint in his eye.

With a swirl of leaves, Death God transported out of my room.

"_I'll take that as my cue to leave too._" Inoichi said while slipping out the door. With a click, the door shut behind him.

There was an awkward silence as everyone remaining in the room turned to look at me curiously.

"_Kakashi-sensei. What did Yamanaka-san mean when he said that Fei-san can't understand us anymore? Could she understand us before?"_ Sakura asked.

Kakashi shrugged while saying, _"I'm not sure. I'm sure I'll find out later today when Hokage-sama calls for me."_

Silence again.

Naruto was brooding unhappily at my bedside. He was glaring angrily at my jutting collarbone. It was an unfortunate result of starvation. I smiled at him, and patted him on the shoulder, trying to cheer him up. I always loved his bright cheerful smile. His frowns just didn't suit his image. Naruto just huffed and glared at the ground. I could almost see a aura of gloom around him.

When I looked up at the others, I saw that Sasuke was ignoring everyone like usual. He was sharpening his kunai while sitting on the window sill. Sakura was looking back and forth nervously from me to Naruto. Kakashi...well, Kakashi was reading his porn book again.

I couldn't help but to grimace at the distasteful choice of reading material. It didn't help that Kakashi was again giggling and blushing. Truthfully, I got the feeling that he was doing it on purpose in order to diffuse the mood. It worked.

After a substantially louder than normal giggle from the silver haired man, Naruto burst up from his chair and pointed an accusing finger at Kakashi while screaming, _"You pervert! Stop that!"_

I had to choke back a laugh, which resulted in me inhaling spit...This resulted in a coughing fit that had Naruto panicking all over again.

"Water." I croaked in Japanese. Sakura handed me her water bottle. When my hacking finally stopped, my face was bright red and tears were slipping from the corner of eyes. Rapidly blinking away the tears, I took a deep breath and sighed. 'Well, that was embarrassing.'

Sakura's worried expression faded to one of amusement. She hid a smile behind her hand demurely. Kakashi was giving his usual crinkled-eyed smile. Sasuke was smirking. And Naruto? After realizing that I wasn't choking to death, a grin split across his face, and soon, he was doubled over in laughter.

To make it even worse. The minute Naruto stopped laughing to take a breath, my stomach growled extremely loudly. I swear, freakin batman was monologuing in there.

x

x

x

**A/N: Hi everyone! This chapter was pretty laid back compared to the angst of last chapter. I hope you enjoyed this one despite the fact that it was kind of a filler for what is coming up next. **

**Thank you to all my reviewers and followers! I love you all! Oh, and my profile picture is kind of how I picture Fay, though with shorter hair and less lace. Lol. **

**Also, I decided that every time I gain another 100 reviews, I'll write a short scene from someone else's POV since you guys seemed to enjoy it so much.**


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Seal Attempts and Exercise

'Single quotations_' _= Thoughts

_Italics = Untranslated Japanese_

x

x

As I stared at the small mountain of scrolls and pencils at the foot of my bed, I got the feeling that the ninjas were trying to tell me something...

x

The date was approximately June 16th...or it would have been June 16th if I'd been still back at home. At least that's what I was able to figure out by asking Ren how many days it'd been since I'd been found. I truthfully was shocked that I'd already spent a whole month out of my own universe. True, a lot had happened, but because everything was just so fast paced, I hadn't realized the amount of time that had passed.

It'd been three days since I'd been reunited with the preteens and Kakashi. It had been a very, very long three days. For one, Ren had stopped by and force fed me a ridiculous number of pills, and given me a terrifying number of shots. Perhaps I'm exaggerating a bit...Nevertheless, I'd been treated like I would drop down dead at any moment.

Naruto especially was very overprotective of me. I don't know what got into him, but he freaked out over everything. While eating lunch, I'd accidentally breathed in a grain of rice. Naruto panicked and thought smacking me on the back was the correct thing to do. Let's just say that I had a palm sized bruise between my shoulder blades.

I might have been angrier, but my small bruise was nothing compared to the lumps that appeared on the top of his blond head after Sakura and Sasuke were done with him.

Truthfully, the reaction of the three preteens confused me. True, I'd spent two whole weeks with them almost constantly, and I'd personally come to be very fond of the whole group, but I didn't think they'd become as attached as they were. Kakashi however didn't seem remotely surprised at the bond formed between the preteens and me. What was I missing?

x

Back on track… On my third day back at the hospital, I woke up to find a mountain of scrolls and pencils. Obviously, someone, somewhere, was heavily hinting at me to start doing seals.

Though the prospect of creating a translation seal more successful than the last one was extremely tempting, I was still iffy on my own capabilities. Seals, I realized, were a lot more complex than I'd initially believed. It wasn't just a bunch of mumbo jumbo mixed together. I was lucky that my amateur attempts hadn't turned me into a gigantic tongue or something.

However, seeing the materials for seal making sitting innocently on my bed, I found myself conflicted. Surely they wouldn't have given me the green light to start experimenting with volatile magic, unless they were sure it was okay...right? I snorted and shook my head wryly.

"Yeah, right." I muttered to myself.

Still, I was curious, extremely curious. What kind of normal person wouldn't want to experiment with the ability to make words reality? Making my decision, I reached over and grabbed one of the larger scrolls, a couple of pencils, and got to work.

This time, I was determined to make the seal as detailed and precise as possible.

"This will give the user the ability to automatically understand Japanese as if the user was a native speaker. The translated Japanese sentences will be grammatically correct. This will give the user the ability to speak Japanese fluently without grammatical errors. At any time, the user may cancel the abilities. These abilities will stay permanent until user consciously cancels the abilities."

Once done, I gave my seal a once over. Unlike my Google Translate seal, this seal was three times larger and more neatly written. In neat block print, the English words were carefully formed into the shape of a seal. I was even careful to make sure that I'd capitalized and used periods. Cross my t's and dot my i's and all that.

Truthfully, once done, I was nervous. My hands gingerly held onto the edge of the scroll. It surprised me that I was actually quivering. From anticipation or fear, I wasn't sure. Most likely, it was a combination of the two.

After double and triple checking for any spelling or grammar mistakes, I finally laid my hands over the seal and focused my chakra.

Nothing happened. Not only did the seal fail to absorb any chakra, it also failed to make any sort of reaction.

"Huh…"

Cocking my head to the side curiously, I next tried poking my seal with the tip of my finger while gently letting out a bit of my chakra. Nothing happened.

Two hours, and three scrolls later, I was no closer to finding out why my sealing attempts were failing. I was so frustrated at the letdown that I had evolved from tugging at my hair to picking at the skin around my nails. Yes, I know that's a gross and bad habit, but during stress I just couldn't help myself. During finals week for example, my fingers are always covered in Band-Aids preventing me from picking at them. In fact, the first few days I'd arrived in this world caused my fingers to bleed a little from me constantly picking at them.

That was how the preteens found me. All three stood at the doorway looking confused at the image I projected. For once, I was not washed up and ready to meet them. My hair was still fluffed from sleep, my hospital gown laid crooked, exposing a bit of shoulder, and I was surrounded by scrolls and eraser shavings.

Shaking her head, Sakura purposefully stomped in and pulled me out of bed. We made our way towards the bathroom. Once there, Sakura turned to the boys, and gave them a pointed look. Naruto and Sasuke, who were still standing awkwardly in the doorway winced, took a step back out of the room, and carefully closed the door behind them.

Once I was finished, all four of us sat in my room and ate breakfast together in comfortable silence. Of course, with Naruto around, it didn't last long.

Despite the fact that Kakashi was always late, Naruto never seemed to be able to accept his teacher's tardy ways. Grinning wickedly, Naruto somehow fashioned an elaborate trap for the door. I wasn't sure on the mechanics, but let's just say it involved a lot of wires, ink and left over food from breakfast.

Though at first, I chastised Naruto for his childish ways, I soon came to realize that Kakashi would never fall for the simple trick. He was a ninja, right?

Surprisingly, Sakura and Sasuke acted as if there was a chance of the prank working. I was adamant in my belief that Kakashi would notice the trap a mile away.

At 8:32 AM, the door finally opened. Kakashi was 28 minutes early! Alas, he was not.

Poor Ren...And while I'm at it, poor Naruto. Ren was going to slaughter him.

x

"_Nee-chan. What's this?" _Naruto asked me while squinting suspiciously at my seal attempts. The mischievous blond was finally done with moping and licking his wounds. Ren had not been gentle while punishing Naruto.

Sakura and Sasuke leaned over Naruto's shoulder to see what the blond was talking about.

"_Looks like a seal…"_

"_Hn. Never seen writing like this before."_

"_That's because it's written in her language. It's not code either so don't bother trying to crack it."_

The three preteens started, and spun around sharply.

"Yo." Kakashi greeted lazily, not taking his eyes off from his orange smut book.

"_You're LATE!" _Screeched Naruto and Sakura together like always; and like always, Kakashi just mumbled an excuse that led to a furious, "_LIAR_!"

Seriously, I never heard them say a nice happy good morning to each other.

"_Good morning Fei."_ Kakashi greeted me cheerfully.

"Good morning." I replied back in Japanese.

The gray haired man slouched over to my bedside and leaned in to look at my scroll. Seeing my many, many attempts, he seemed to realize I was having no success with my sealing adventure.

With a gentle smile, he patted me on the head, (to my ire) and said to the preteens, "_Today, Fei will be joining us for training_."

I heard my name mentioned, as well as the words 'today' and 'training'.

'Oh f-ckity f-ck f-ck f-ck.' I thought with a feeling of doom.

x

Kakashi had somehow found some black shorts in my size, a pair of ninja sandals, and a simple black t-shirt. He'd done well with the shorts and shoes, but I suspect that the shirt I was wearing once belonged to a male much larger then I. It was nearly a dress on me, no, not nearly a dress on me, an actual dress on me. I didn't know why I was even bothering to wear shorts.

Naruto and Kakashi seemed pretty amused by the sight of me swallowed up in oversized clothes, and even Sasuke was smirking. At least Sakura shared in my horror of the outfit.

"_Doesn't she look adorable!" _Naruto laughed while wiping tear from his eyes.

"_Hn. Looks like a kid playing dress up."_ Hn'd Sasuke.

It seemed that for once, the two boys were in agreement.

"_Oh poor Fei. This is just terrible! Kakashi-sensei, next time I'll choose!"_ Said Sakura while shooting me a sympathetic look.

Kakashi just sheepishly scratched the back of his head and held the door open for me.

I of course didn't go out. Instead I looked up at Kakashi in confusion.

"Bracelet?" I asked him while holding out my wrist.

To my surprise, Kakashi just shook his head.

"_Hokage-sama has already released you from the seal. You're not restricted anymore."_

'Hokage-sama, seal?' After a few seconds of puzzling over Kakashi's words, I finally put the pieces together.

'When did he take off the restrictions?' I wondered. Furrowing my brows, I tried to think of a moment where I may have been released from the seal.

'Oh! It was that time after we got back to the hospital. He put his hand on me and I felt that flash of chakra through me. That must have been when he took the seal off.' I thought.

With renewed confidence, I took a deep breath and marched out. Alas! I was once again zapped. My brain was fried and I fell into a deep coma for all eternity…

Just kidding.

No, nothing bad happened. Though I winced expectantly, I felt no pain. Truthfully, I felt a bit foolish standing in the doorway with my eyes screwed shut and my shoulders hunched up protectively.

After a few awkward moments of silence, I relaxed and sheepishly grinned at the amused expressions on the ninjas' faces.

Once we made it outside, my fears of training became reality. When I tried to sneak away to the tree to sit under its protective branches, I felt Kakashi's hand fall on my shoulder.

I looked up over my shoulder to see a comically friendly smile. It was the type of smile you would give someone just after you'd shaved off all their hair or something.

'Merde.' I thought weakly.

x

I am not a very athletic person. Not only am I anemic, but also I had never done sports at school. My petite frame and delicate build made sports difficult for me. Not to mention, my parents were extremely overprotective. No, I was the type to sit on the sidelines and read. The only time I ever excelled in PE was during dodge ball. No one ever had the heart to throw a ball at my wincing cowering self, and then when they forget that I'm there, I get the little suckers with my sneak attacks. I'm an academic type, not a fitness type; don't judge me.

Well, Kakashi and the other ninjas obviously never got this message. The gray haired man immediately got me running laps around the field with the preteens. What they didn't expect was for me to stumble and collapse to the ground within minutes due to nausea and dizziness. I hadn't completely healed from my stint in the hellhole.

Kakashi, seeing this as a lost cause for now, let me rest for a few minutes underneath my lovely, lovely tree before he forced me back onto my feet. This time he decided to go with a less strenuous exercise.

Soon I was the proud wielder of a kunai. I held the sharp metal knife delicately with two fingers, keeping it an arms length away. I didn't know what Kakashi expected me to do with it. No way in hell was I going to stab anyone with it!

It seemed I wasn't going to stab anything…yet. Instead, the now clearly exasperated man slowly showed me how to throw the kunai. With a THUNK, the knife was embedded into the trunk of my poor, lovely, lovely tree.

"I'll try, but don't expect much." I mumbled to myself while adjusting my grip on the kunai. Holding it like how I thought Kakashi had gripped his, I carefully pulled back my arm and threw the kunai.

The good news was, I didn't hit anyone, including my favorite tree. The bad news was the kunai fell with a pathetic flop not two feet away from me. I had misjudged the release, and ended up letting the kunai go in such a way that the thing had spun on itself and fallen to the ground with a pathetic flop.

There was silence, then a snort of amusement from the direction of the preteens. It was Sasuke I realized. I threw him a halfhearted glare. Naruto and Sakura both seemed to be holding back laughter as well.

"_You've got to be kidding me."_ Kakashi sighed.

Two hours later, I was no better at throwing kunai. Despite how many times Kakashi adjusted my grip and posture, and no matter how many times I threw the damn thing, I had yet to hit the target.

The usually laid back man looked more than a little ruffled for once. He seemed to be bewildered at how bad someone could be at a little knife throwing. I got the feeling he thought I was a complete failure. I wanted to tell him that in my world knife throwing wasn't a practical skill, and that I had a bright future ahead of me thanks to my academic prowess, so screw knives. Unfortunately, my vocabulary skills were too lacking to get that particular message across.

Finally, to my relief, and to the preteens' disappointment, Kakashi gave up with a sigh. Plucking the kunai from my grip, he just led me towards Sakura, who was halfheartedly doing sit-ups with the boys.

"_Sakura, please teach Fei how to do sit-ups." _Kakashi sighed, before ambling off to read his book.

Well, at the very least, sit-ups were easy enough to do. I just went slowly, and gave myself breaks between repetitions.

Sasuke and Naruto seemed to find my snail pace amusing. I noticed with a glare that the two boys were showing off. For one of my sit-up, they did five. But soon, it evolved, from teasing me for my lack in athletic abilities, to a fierce competition between the two.

That was then I noticed the flow of chakra from the two boys.

'They're using chakra!' I realized with a gasp of comprehension.

Carefully, I pooled a bit of chakra to my abdominal muscles and tried a sit-up. To my delight, it came much easier then before. Soon, I was happily matching Sakura's pace.

In a few minutes, I started feeling slightly lightheaded, but ignored the feeling, assuming that it was from the constant movement of my head. Then, I suddenly found a hand on my forehead, pushing me down, preventing me from getting back up.

With a startled yelp, I saw that it was Death God who was crouching over me, holding me down effortlessly with one hand.

"_Hey! What the hell are you doing! Get away from her you bastard!"_ Naruto yelled, while lunging towards Death God. Sasuke and Sakura were also up and tense. Sasuke even had a kunai out and ready.

Death God easily knocked the blond off his feet with a blur of motion too fast for my eyes to follow.

"NARUTO!" I screamed as I watched his body thump to the ground. A normal boy from my world could have been seriously injured, or at the very least have had the wind knocked out of him. Not the people from this world. Naruto bounced back up as if he had just been lightly swatted away, which I supposed was the equivalent here.

Before Naruto could leap again at Death God, Kakashi appeared behind him and grabbed the back of his collar.

"_Stay."_ Death God ordered me. I stared at him with wide, WTF, eyes. In one fluid movement, the man released my forehead and stepped away from me. Still in shock, I meekly laid still on the ground.

"_Care to explain?"_ Kakashi casually asked, looking most unperturbed by the events.

"_She was using chakra to do sit-ups. At the rate she was burning through her meager reserves, she would have gone into chakra deprivation shock." _

"_Ah. I see."_

Whatever Death God said calmed everyone down. All the anger and caution from the preteens changed to worry, and in Sasuke's case fake indifference.

Kakashi dropped his hold on Naruto, and said, _"Naruto, get Shibayama-sensei."_ Hearing Ren's name, I realized that I had somehow hurt myself again. Naruto quickly scampered off to fetch Ren.

"_At this rate, she'll never be a shinobi."_ Kakashi said.

"_That bad?"_ Asked Death God.

Kakashi gave his upside down U smile. _"I know you were observing this whole time. I haven't gotten so rusty as to miss you hiding up in that tree."_

Death God's chakra spiked minutely. I got the feeling he was annoyed at Kakashi.

"_Why are you observing?"_ Sasuke demanded coldly.

Death God's attention shifted towards the glaring Sasuke. _"Orders." _He answered.

"_Hn."_ Sasuke replied. I seriously thought that Sasuke could do with some speech training. The amount of Hn's he used was excessive.

I wondered if I was allowed to sit up yet. It was extremely uncomfortable being the only one laying down while everyone else stood around. When I experimentally edged my torso up a bit, Death God somehow managed to crouch down and smack me lightly on the forehead before returning back to his standing position. I didn't see him move at all, only feeling the smack on my forehead.

Disgruntled, I laid back down with a huff of annoyance. Sasuke's amused snort did not help prevent the deep blush of embarrassment from pooling in my cheeks.

When Naruto finally arrived with Ren, I was immediately bombarded with the very familiar scolding chatter Ren adopted around me.

"_Honestly! Why does this keep happening? I would think that after all the OTHER times you've experienced chakra exhaustion you would know better!"_ The blue haired medic grumbled while he let his warm chakra slid into me.

When the feeling of vertigo passed, Ren pulled his chakra back and helped me sit up. I half feared that I would receive a smack on the forehead again.

"_Are her reserves really that low?"_ Sakura asked.

Ren ran a hand through his hair, a habit he seemed to adopt every time something happened to me. "_I'm afraid so Sakura. Her chakra levels are about the same as an academy student's, but unfortunately she has good chakra control."_

"_Hey, wait! I thought chakra control thing is good or something!"_ Naruto burst out.

"_It is, but in Fei's case her control is so good that she's able to do things with her chakra that her level of reserve just can't handle. An academy student would never have to worry about chakra deprivation from creating dense chakra in their palm because they just wouldn't be able to do it in the first place." _

"_So her reserves haven't grown at all?" _Kakashi asked.

"_No! I just don't understand it. Her core is growing steadily, but her body just isn't producing enough chakra to fill it up! It's like it's leaking out somewhere but we all know that's not it or we would have sensed it!"_ Ren stated animatedly, an expression of intense frustration on his face as he threw his arms up in exasperation.

Knowing that I wouldn't be able to understand what they were saying at all, I ignored the conversation about me, and instead focused on trying to make Death God feel guilty by rubbing my forehead.

Adopting a wide-eyed 'how-could-you-do-that' expression, I managed to put just the right amount of pout in my lips for it to look natural. Who knows if it worked on Death God. His damn mask made it nigh impossible for me to tell. At the very least, my expression made the preteens look slightly uncomfortable so I knew I still had it. My years of begging sweets and favors from my parents were paying off.

After few minutes of periodically glancing at Death God with 'the look' the masked man finally sighed in irritation and reached into his pouch. Suddenly, with a blur of motion, I found something restricting my forehead. I reached up to touch whatever it was. It was bandages. The insufferable Death Cat (no way was I going to call him a 'god' anymore) had wrapped my forehead with bandages.

"_Hehe. Nee-chan, you look great!"_ Naruto said, a cheeky grin on his face.

"_Your first battle wound."_ Sasuke grunted with a smirk.

"_You'll start a new fashion trend for sure!"_ Sakura said with an innocent smile.

"_Oh lovely, just what I need, another patient."_ Muttered Ren.

"_Hm. Insert witty comment here." _Kakashi said with a lazy flourish of his hand, his nose still buried in his book.

I had no idea what they were saying but hell… I could guess.

'Just you wait you little ninja turds. Just you wait.' I thought darkly.

x

x

x

**A/N: I'm so sorry! I really am. Thank you to Generator X who reminded me to get off my lazy bum and start writing. I just started college and was really overwhelmed by the change. Just when I think, "Oh! Some free time!" another midterm suddenly materializes. Thank you to all my reviewers. I hope you liked this chapter. Critic is welcome!**


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Exploration and Strangers

'Single quotations' = Thoughts

_Italics = Untranslated Japanese_

x

x

Over the next week, I came to slowly but surely expand my horizons, and become used to a schedule of sorts.

Every morning, I would wake up at 6:00. I would wash and tidy myself up, and work fruitlessly on seals for a little while before giving up. No matter what I tried, I wasn't able to get a reaction from the seals. I'd even tried the exact same Google Translate seal of the past, but even that had no result.

At approximately 7:00, the preteens would arrive. Sasuke would open the curtains and sit on the windowsill, Sakura would plop down on my bed and curiously study my latest seal attempts, and Naruto would happily babble away to me while I politely nodded every few seconds or so. I had no idea what in the world he was talking about, but well, I didn't have the heart to ignore him.

Around 7:30, the preteens would play rock paper scissors. The loser would have to go fetch breakfast. Unfortunately for Naruto, he was more often than not the loser. I was pretty sure that the other two were cheating somehow.

While I ate breakfast, the preteens would warm up with a few laps up and down the wall outside my window. Around the time I finished with breakfast, they were usually working out in earnest. Naruto, after I expressed extreme interest in his clones, delighted in sparring with them for my amusement. Sakura focused usually on chakra control exercises such as walking or standing upside down. Sasuke was the most diverse of the three. Sometimes he practiced his fire breathing. Other times he practiced his hand-to-hand combat or knife throwing.

Between 9:01 and 9:35 Kakashi would finally arrive and then the training would really start. Unfortunately, my training would begin as well.

For lunch, thanks to my newfound freedom, we took to eating out as often as possible. Naruto especially delighted in showing me his favorite ramen stand where he introduced me to the chef and the chef's daughter.

After lunch was more training, but not back at the hospital, but at a separate, surprisingly private, training ground.

At 4:00, training ended and the preteens would drag me around the village again, and later to find dinner. The first time this happened, Sasuke tried to sneak off, but Naruto and Sakura had managed to somehow guilt him into staying. Kakashi however always disappeared no matter how hard the preteens tried to keep him around. He usually reappeared at about 8:30 to walk with us back to the hospital to drop me off if we weren't there already.

So this was my usual schedule, and though I was constantly and frantically worrying about my Papa underneath my smiling mask, the busy days helped dull the pain.

x

By June 23rd, after a week of fruitless training, Kakashi had pretty much given up on me. He realized that my stamina was nonexistent (no thanks to my anemia) and that my hand-eye coordination was completely abysmal.

The only time when I felt as if I was keeping up with the preteens was when I used chakra to help me. However, my reserves were so pathetic that Kakashi and Ren soon banned me from using it altogether.

By the way, dear, sweet, amazing, wonderful, fantastic, magnificent Sakura got me a new shirt. It was a simple burgundy high collar sleeveless shirt, and I thought I looked positively chic wearing it. It went well with my coloring I think. I know that I'm gushing, but I can't help it. After the dress-length man shirt fiasco, the new shirt was heaven sent.

Oh, and Death Cat was still watching me. While at the hospital and training grounds, he made no effort to hide his presence and openly sat on a tree branch nearby. I wasn't sure what he did all day. Sometimes, I was sure that he had turned to stone, or at the very least, fallen asleep. However, due to his mask, it was impossible to tell.

"_Fei, try one more time."_ Kakashi lazily ordered me.

'Come on Fay. You can do it! You've been throwing this hunk of metal for the last week you know.' I told myself.

Gripping the kunai firmly, I shifted and coiled my muscles in anticipation. My posture was perfect, my grip was superb, my aim was right on, and my release could not have been more on time. However, the kunai wobbled and fell short of the target once again. My muscles were just too weak. If only I had more chakra, I could have reinforced my muscles, but alas that was not to be.

With a sigh, Kakashi plucked the kunai off the ground. He hesitated. For a second, I was sure he was going to give me the kunai again, but instead, he flipped it away with an effortless snap of his wrist. 'Show off.'

The gray haired man scratched the back of his head wearily as he studied my dejected expression. I didn't want to be a ninja. I didn't want to fight and kill and be all sneaky. However, this didn't mean that I wasn't discouraged by my lack of improvement. I may not want to be a ninja, but it didn't mean I wanted to fail at everything Kakashi was trying to teach me. It was embarrassing.

Smiling gently, Kakashi ruffled up my hair with a fond pat. I didn't even bother working up a glare, as I knew it had no affect on him. Instead, I sighed and made my way over to the preteens who were practicing with their shuriken.

Of the three, Sasuke seemed to have the most familiarity with the star shaped weapons. I noticed during spars that he liked to mix his shuriken with his fire breathing technique. Not for the first time, I wondered how in the world the ninja's were able to do what they did.

A few days ago, I had made Naruto extremely uncomfortable by poking and prodding one of his clones. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but my curiosity got out of hand and I had almost made the poor clone cry when I started pulling out his hairs to see if they would stay solid once apart from the clone.

Today I wanted to see how Sasuke's fire breathing worked. All in the name of science of course…Ok, I admit it - I was just bored and curious.

"Sasuke." I called out. Said dark haired boy paused in his shuriken throwing to look at me blankly. Shifting my weight nervously, I shuffled closer to the boy and gave him my best puppy-dog eyes. He tried to act like it wasn't affecting him, but I saw the subtle twitch in his eyebrow and the slight grimace of unease. 'Hah! Gotcha!' I thought victoriously.

Bringing up one hand, I made the hand seal Sasuke used for his fire breathing technique, and blew a quick puff of air over my fingers in a weak imitation. Naruto and Sakura had also paused in their training to watch the development.

Sasuke looked extremely confused. I blew over my hands again to really hammer in the message. The boy closed his eyes and gave an aggravated sigh, but he did as he was asked.

"_Katon Goukakyuu no Jutsu!"_ Sasuke yelled as he made his hand seals and breathed out a stream of burning hot fire.

With wide eyes I studied the exit of the flames from Sasuke's mouth. I realized with surprise that the fire wasn't actually coming from his mouth but was forming just past his lips around his hand.

Once the technique ended, Sasuke gave me a look that seemed to say, 'Well, are you happy now?' In response, I grabbed his hand and studied it.

'Hm…no burns on his hands. Not even particularly warm either.' Next I leaned nearer towards Sasuke, to Sakura and Naruto's horror, and looked around the edge of his mouth. Sasuke leaned away from me with a wary look on his face.

'No burns around his mouth.'

"Sasuke, Ahhhh." I ordered the boy, opening my own mouth wide so that he could clearly see what I wanted him to do.

By then, Sasuke was glaring furiously. Hn'ing, he backed away from me and firmly shook his head no.

'Oh well…I knew he wouldn't agree with that last one.' I thought with a mental sigh of disappointment. I really wanted to see if he had any extra glands full of flammable gas or something in his mouth.

x

For lunch, the preteens decided on Ramen…again. Truthfully, I think it was because Naruto wouldn't shut up about ramen so the other two just gave in. We hadn't had ramen for lunch in a while so I was okay with it. Not to mention, I wanted to try the miso flavor.

We were walking, in Naruto's case joyfully bouncing, towards Ichiraku Ramen when Kakashi suddenly paused and looked up.

Circling in the sky was a hawk of some kind.

"_Hm…sorry, seems like I won't be able to join you guys for lunch after all."_ Said Kakashi. And before anyone could question or even protest, he disappeared with a poof.

I gave the preteens a questioning look. Sakura and Naruto shrugged in response.

We started heading in the direction of the restaurant again when we noticed a square box with eyeholes following Naruto. I think the box was supposed to be a rock…but I wasn't sure.

Naruto at first tried to ignore the box, and then he tried to shake off the stalking box before finally losing his temper.

"_That's the worst disguise of all time! There's no such thing as square rocks! It's completely obvious!" _

There was a mumbled reply from the box before a sudden bright flash of light and smoke blinded my vision. With a loud bang, three children appeared from the smoke, two boys and a girl. They all had goggles on, and were coughing their lungs out from inhaling the pink gas that formed.

Immediately concerned for their health, I rushed over to make sure they hadn't hurt themselves.

"Daijoubu?" (Are you okay?) I asked in Japanese.

"_Cough-we're-cough fine. Too much gun powder."_ The boy with spiky brown hair managed to say through his wheezing.

"_Konohamaru! Why are you guys following me?" _Demanded Naruto.

"_Boss! You promised to play ninja with us! Remember?"_

"_Uh…" _Naruto mumbled while awkwardly scratching the back of his head, "_Did I say that?"_

"_You did!"_

With a sigh, Naruto said, "_Sorry guys. I don't have time to play with you; after all, I'm a real ninja now. Anyways, I have to train, and I'm on a mission right now."_

"_Mission?"_ The boy, Konohamaru I believe, asked. He looked around him. First, his gaze fell on Sasuke, who looked positively pissed off about the whole situation, then it fell on Sakura who just looked exasperated and annoyed. Finally, he looked at me.

"_Hey you! Where's your headband huh?"_ He asked me. I of course just blinked at him blankly.

"_Idiot! She doesn't have one because she's not a ninja! My mission is to protect her, believe it!"_ Naruto half yelled.

Konohamaru just squinted at me suspiciously. I gave him my best cheerful smile, but it twitched in the face of his fierce stare.

"…_Is she retarded?"_ Konohamaru asked after carful consideration. Immediately the mood of the preteens shifted to anger, and to my surprise, Konohamaru was on the ground clutching his head after three fists bashed into him.

"_Tsk. Annoying."_ Sasuke grunted.

"_You shouldn't say that about others! It's very rude."_ Sakura scolded.

"_Brat! Fei no nee-chan isn't retarded!"_ Yelled Naruto.

"_Gahh! All right already! She's not retarded."_ Konohamaru grumbled while clutching the top of his head gingerly. The boy glanced in my direction. I just stared at him with wide eyes before asking him once again, "Daijoubu?"

Konohamaru eyed me skeptically. _"Mentally challenged then…"_ He muttered to himself.

I don't know what he said, but it seemed to irritate the preteens once again. Sakura especially looked livid. The chakra from all three preteens spiked dangerously, and Konohamaru seemed to sense this as he paled.

Picking himself off the ground, the boy immediately sped off like a bullet while Naruto and Sakura gave chase. Sasuke's glare followed the boy, but he just scowled and walked off in the other direction.

Not knowing what to do, I exchanged confused glances with the other two kids and followed after Naruto and Sakura.

When I rounded the corner, I came upon a very strange situation. Konohamaru was being held in the grasp of a tall dangerous looking teen whose face was painted with purple paint, and Naruto was glaring at said teen. A girl with blonde hair stood a little behind the face paint boy, she looked exasperated.

I felt anger bubble up when I saw poor Konohamaru being manhandled by the big bully.

"_Hey! Let go of him you bastard!" _Naruto roared, his hands balling up into fists.

Sakura, ever the diplomat said, _"Naruto! That's not going to help."_ She then turned to the strangers. _"I'm sorry, it was my fault. Please let go of him."_

"_Heh. So this is Konoha's genin. What pathetic excuses for ninjas."_ The bully taunted.

"_Bastard!"_ Naruto roared as he launched himself at the stranger. To my shock Naruto was suddenly flung back despite the fact that nothing had seemed to touch the blond.

"_The heck?"_ Naruto wondered while looking around in confusion.

"_L-et me g-go!"_ Konohamaru croaked. The boy's face was screwed up in obvious pain. He couldn't breath!

"_Let's deal with this kid first."_ The painted boy sneered.

"_Kankurou, you can't be serious."_

"_I'm just having some fun Temari. Anyways, I've got to teach these brats a lesson."_

A sigh from the girl,_ "Fine, but I had nothing to do with this."_

When the stranger pulled back his arm to punch Konohamaru a rock suddenly smacked in to his hand causing him to drop his hold on the squirming boy. I started and spun around to see where the rock came from.

"_Sasuke-kun!_" Sakura squealed. Indeed, the brooding boy was tossing a few rocks in his hand – his holier-than-thou smirk firmly in place.

I was thankful that Sasuke had arrived, but at the same time, I was worried that the situation would escalate into a full out battle. The preteens were ninja, but the strangers were too. Not to mention the strangers were taller and older as well.

"_You!"_ The painted boy snarled.

Before Sasuke could reply, I decided to try to defuse the situation.

Stepping forward, I made my way towards the strangers with wide eyes. My sudden appearance seemed to throw everyone off-guard, especially the strangers.

"_Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! Nee-chan! Don't go near them!"_ Screeched Naruto.

"_What the hell do you want?" _The stranger asked me with a warning growl in his tone.

Instead of answering, I held up my pointer finger and gave him a scolding look. _"Bad. No ouch to my friends. Understand?"_ I admonished.

There was a pregnant pause.

"_The F-ck?"_

'Well…it seemed that my plan worked.' The tension and battle lust had faded away to confusion (from the strangers) and apprehensive exasperation (from the preteens).

Unfortunately, the confusion from the tall boy switched to annoyance and anger. I could practically see a vein throbbing in his forehead.

"_Are you mocking me? Is this your idea of a joke?"_ Growled the boy.

'Uh oh…crap, retreat! Retreat!' I took a quick step backwards trying to bring myself into the fold of the preteens but found myself unable to move back any further. I didn't now what it was, but something was restricting my movement.

I gave a small yelp of distress and immediately Naruto and Sasuke drew their weapons and readied themselves to fight. However, before the two boys could start World War Three, a cold voice cut in.

"_Kankurou. Stop."_

I jumped in surprise and glanced up to the tree Sasuke was crouching in to see a red haired youth hanging upside down on a branch. It seemed that Sasuke hadn't noticed the red haired boy's approach either, as there was a irritated expression on his face. An expression I knew he often put on when trying to seem unaffected.

"_You're a disgrace to our village."_

"_G-Ga-ara!"_ The boy, who I surmised to be Kankurou, stuttered out. I could practically see the sweat dribbling down his face.

There was a terrifying aura around the new stranger. I felt just a sliver of his bloody, burning chakra and immediately pulled in my chakra in terror. Not to mention, thanks to having a sensitive nose coupled by a convenient draft, I could smell a hint of metal off of the boy. It smelled remarkably like blood.

When I experimentally tried to take a step back, I realized to my relief that my mobility had returned. Mentally berating myself for the screwed up diplomatic mission, I hurried to stand behind the preteens knowing that I was useless in battle.

In a whirl of sand, the red haired boy with the gigantic gourd on his back disappeared and rematerialized next to his two teammates. The boy…he had no eyebrows and had the wildest dark circles I'd ever seen.

'Panda…or perhaps a raccoon.'

I noticed the character for love was tattooed on his forehead. Perhaps while doing the tattoo something had gone wrong and permanently destroyed the eyebrows? Who knew?

"_Why are Sand shinobi here?"_ Sasuke asked icily.

'Brrrr. I can literally feel the cold, Sasuke.'

"_We're here for the Chuunin Exam of course."_ The girl answered.

"_Huh? Chuunin exam? What's that? I don't know about any exam?" _Asked Naruto with an adorably perplexed expression. He looked like a curious puppy. He even had his head cocked to the side in question.

Rolling her eyes and smirking, the girl drawled, _"Oh, I don't doubt it."_

"_Boss, isn't the Chuunin exam what the genin take in order to become Chuunin?"_ Hissed Konohamaru.

"_Hey really? Yeah, Chuunin exam, I'm totally up for that! Sign me up! Believe it!" _

The strangers just scoffed, turned around and started to walk away.

"_Hey wait. Who are you?"_ Sasuke called after them.

I almost snorted in laughter when the girl spun around with a hopeful, flirty look. _"Oh! Me?"_

"_No. Him."_

The red haired boy's eyes narrowed a fraction as he replied, "_Sabaku no Gaara. And you?"_

Another cocky grin from the dark haired preteen, _"Uchiha Sasuke."_

'Ah…so they were exchanging names. So I guess the red head is Sabaku no Gaara.'

With that, the three blurred as they leapt away faster than my eyes could follow.

**A/N: So there you go. The Chuunin Exams are starting soon! Now things are really going to begin. You don't know how much I wanted to skip everything and just jump to this part of the story. Thank you to all the reviewers! Over FORTY review! OMG! I wanted to update quickly to thank all of you. Like I promised, since the review count just passed 200, another quick extra. Enjoy. **

POV: Death God…who was demoted to Death Cat

**A/N: So you know, I always thought the whole idea of ANBU being called by their animal masks to be impossible considering the manga never did this, and because there are too many ANBU with the same animal mask. So I decided to give the code name Daiki to Death God. **

"Hokage-sama." Daiki intoned impassively as he kneeled subserviently in front of the Hokage's desk.

"Ah. Daiki. How are you feeling? Wound's have all healed?"

"Yes, I am fit for active duty."

"Hm…" The Hokage shifted thoughtlessly through a few papers, his mind clearly on another topic.

"How would you like a vacation?" The old man suddenly asked.

Daiki stiffened in surprise, then wary apprehension. Somehow, he just knew that the Hokage was planning something; he could see it in the geezer's wrinkly face.

"…I would be…honored to accept a vacation."

The corners of the Hokage's mouth twitched and Daiki couldn't help but to despair. He was screwed. No doubt about it. Daiki feared that the Hokage had caught on to the fact that he had been one of the people to spread the story of how the Hokage had fainted from Naruto's sexy henge when the blond had stolen the forbidden scroll.

A glint of malice twinkled in the Hokage's eyes, and Daiki flinched behind his mask. He knew! No doubt about it, the Hokage knew.

"I think a nice easy C-rank mission within the comfort and safety of Konoha is just the thing, don't you?"

"Of course, Hokage-sama." Daiki managed to mumble out blankly.

"Yes…Hm. I hereby assign you as babysitter and caretaker of one Jonzu Fei until I deem otherwise."

Daiki felt his heart drop with dread. That meant he had to hang around the annoying banana head, the pink-haired rabid fan girl and the angst driven red-eyed revenge boy. Kami, he had to work in the same vicinity as Kakashi-senpai.

Despite his inner horror, Daiki gritted his teeth and respectfully answered with a blunt, "understood" before he disappeared from the room.

x

Daiki was bored. He was so bored that he had resorted to reading over Kakashi's shoulder from a distance. Of course to all onlookers, he was silently sitting on a tree seemingly staring off into space. There was more than one use for his mask you know.

After a good hour of reading along with Kakashi, Daiki realized with dismay that the book was actually really interesting. Groaning internally, he pried his gaze from the book and instead focused his attention to Kakashi's brats and the girl, Fei.

The girl was fruitlessly trying to throw shuriken at a tree stump to no avail. She had a miserable 1 out of 7 success rate. However, Daiki wasn't surprised. The half-hearted attempts to see if they could make the girl into a kunoichi was bound for failure from the very beginning. She was just too late to start, too delicate and too…civilian. There was a reason why shinobi were trained from a young age. It wasn't just the physical aspect, but a mental one as well. Shinobi had to be taught from a young age that fighting and killing was acceptable, something the girl obviously was never trained in.

"Yo."

Daiki twitched at the voice.

"Kakashi-senpai."

"Hm… you know if you want, I can lend you the book. It was just about to get to a really good part. Don't you want to know what happens to cute Aya-chan?"

This was why Daiki couldn't stand Kakashi-senpai.

"No thank you." Daiki replied shortly.

"Oh? Are you sure? Well, your loss then."

The silver-haired man went back to reading his book. There was a few minutes of silence where Daiki continued to watch the girl interact with the students.

As he watched Naruto bounce around the girl, with an evident look of happiness on his whiskered face, Daiki couldn't help but frown. His gaze next shifted to the brooding female wet dream, Sasuke. He was actually demonstrating how to hold the shuriken properly to Fei. And Sakura, she was far more mellow and mature around the universe-hopping girl.

"Kakashi-senpai. Isn't this dangerous?"

"Hm?"

"That girl, she's wriggled her way into your team. If this keeps up she'll have the Jinchuuriki, Konoha's last Uchiha and those two guy's precious female teammate, Sakura, in her grasp."

Kakashi was silent for a while before saying, "I don't think Fei would do anything to hurt the kids."

"You don't know that for sure. How did this happen anyways."

"Well. It's complicated."

"Try me."

Sighing, Kakashi peered up from the book to gaze at the girl and his students.

"In Naruto's case, it has a lot to do with his personality, his lonely childhood and his last mission. He's the type of guy who just accepts people. Starving for attention you could say, and Fei is very kind in giving him that attention that Naruto craves."

"You mentioned mission?"

"Ah. You heard of how our mission to the Wave went south?"

"Of course."

"Well, Zabuza's partner, a boy around their age befriended Naruto. Then I killed him. The failure to protect his friend scarred him more than he realizes himself. So when it looked like he failed again when Fei was taken away for interrogation, he went ballistic."

"Okay, what about Sakura."

"Simple. They're both female. Fei relies on Sakura more than she relies on the boys. They bond as fellow females, and Sakura gets to take on a lot of responsibility. It's helped her mature."

"Brooding boy?"

Kakashi smirked at the brooding boy comment before answering. "Sasuke's an orphan. He's lost a lot. Most of all, he feels guilty for being unable to save his clan. People don't know it, but he's very protective. Did I tell you, he jumped in the path of what he believed to be a fatal attack just to protect Naruto? And just look at her…she looks like she wouldn't be able to withstand a strong gust of wind. Hm…kind of tempted to see if she'll really fall over from a little wind jutsu."

"Don't even think about it."

"Mah mah. I'll resist the temptation…for now."

**A/N: And that's the end!**


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Kidnapping and More Kidnapping

'Single quotations' = Thoughts

_Italics = Untranslated Japanese_

_X_

"FEI-HIME!" Brave ninja Konohamaru screamed as I, the beautiful princess, was snatched away by the villainous evil Sasuke.

"_Let the princess go!" _Moegi demanded as she pointed a kunai threateningly at the dark-haired villain.

"_No."_ Sasuke deadpanned.

I screamed, "HELP!" In Japanese, reaching imploringly towards the heroes. (Naruto, Moegi, Udon, and Konohamaru)

"_Please! You must save my daughter! Please shinobi-sans," _Sakura, my loving mother, begged as she turned beseeching eyes towards the heroes.

Naruto, the captain of the Ninja Hero Squad puffed out his chest. _"We'll save your daughter for sure Sak— my lady! Believe it!"_

As one, the four ninjas leapt at Sasuke, the evil one, but alas he easily jumped away with me still in his grasp.

I let out a soft gasp of surprise as we suddenly leapt up into the air. I clutched Sasuke's arm in fear as the ground rapidly approached, but my worry was unfounded as we lightly landed a few meters from our initial position.

When I glanced behind my shoulder, I couldn't help but to snort in amusement at Sasuke's pissed off expression. I could literally see a vein throb in his forehead as he watched Naruto and the children scream another battle cry as they charged him once again.

It seemed that Sasuke was done playing. Gently, but firmly pushing me behind him, he let loose a barrage of shuriken, which managed to pin the three children to a tree. The only one who managed to block the ninja stars in time was Naruto. As Naruto came within Sasuke's reach, they immediately began a flurry of hand-to-hand combat.

I sighed as I edged around their fight towards Sakura, who was freeing the children. It was clear that Naruto and Sasuke had forgotten all about the game and were now just trying to beat the crap out of each other.

"Oh well…it was fun while it lasted." I chirped cheerfully.

It had been a couple hours since we'd met the foreign ninjas. After we had lunch, the preteens and I had headed towards the training ground where my ninjas usually trained. Naruto had desperately tried to get rid of the children, but they had stubbornly stuck to us like glue. Of course, when we reached the training ground, Kakashi was nowhere to be seen.

Usually, we would then all train individually, until he arrived, but because the children refused to leave, Naruto was forced to bargain with them. From what I could understand, I deduced that Naruto had promised to play 'ninja' with them in return that they leave afterwards. Unfortunately for Sasuke, he had also been convinced (coerced) into going along with the make belief game.

At first, I'd been very confused when everyone started to call me Fei-hime, as I knew, thanks from watching Mononoke-hime, that hime meant princess. However, I soon found myself having a ton of fun playing the dramatic damsel in distress.

A flare of light from Sasuke's fire breathing, and pops from Naruto's clones being destroyed alerted me to the fact that the fight had escalated. The children, now freed were cheerfully encouraging on the fight. Konohamaru had even produced a banner with Naruto's face on it somehow… I personally was terrified that a mistake would result in a fatal injury.

Seeing my distressed expression, Sakura stepped forward to shout at the boys to stop fighting. When the two ignored her, I saw Sakura's eyebrow twitch in irritation. Luckily, Kakashi chose that moment to interfere. With ease, the silver haired man managed to block, and in result stop, the two boys' attacks.

Konohamaru, seeing that the fight was over, and that Kakashi had arrived, slumped unhappily before nudging his two friends. As one, they waved goodbye before hurrying away.

"_Fighting among teammates? Hm…perhaps you guys aren't ready for this after all."_ Kakashi hummed thoughtfully as he casually flourished three slips of paper.

In a flash, Naruto leapt for the papers, but Kakashi effortlessly pulled them out of reach.

"_Come on Kakashi-sensei! Let me see! What is it?"_ The blond boy whined.

Ignoring Naruto, Kakashi spoke directly to the other two preteens.

"_I've recommended all three of you for the Chuunin exam. These here are the applications." _Informed Kakashi as he handed each of the preteens a slip of paper.

I watched curiously at the differing reaction from the preteens. Naruto gleefully hugged his slip of paper, Sasuke took the slip with a determined look, and Sakura looked at her slip nervously while listening attentively to the last of Kakashi's information.

Judging by Naruto's reaction to the slip, I guessed it was probably for something dangerous and life threatening. 'Fricken adrenaline junkie.'

Either way, what followed was an instant increase of concentration during training.

X

It was a sweaty, lost in thought trio who left with me after training finished at 4:00. Out of the three, Sakura's reaction worried me the most. The crease between her eyes and the dull expression in her gaze left me feeling hesitant around the usually cheerful girl.

"Sakura? Are you okay?" I asked carefully in Japanese, making sure to keep my voice low enough so that the boys wouldn't hear.

"_Hmm? Oh! Yes, I'm fine."_ She reassured me. _"I'm just tired from training, that's all."_

Sasuke and Naruto, who had been walking up ahead had paused and were now looking curiously back at us. Sakura and I gave them hesitant smiles, which caused a frown to appear on Sasuke's face, while Naruto just looked confused.

"_Come on you guys! I'm starving! Lets hurry to the restaurant and eat! Sasuke, don't even think about leaving! You're on a mission to protect Fei no nee-chan so you got 'a stick with us, ok." _Naruto said with a sunny grin in order to ease the nervous mood.

"_Hn."_ Sasuke grunted unhappily.

I saw a small smile flicker on Sakura's face at Sasuke's reply, so I guessed that he'd agreed once again to stay with us for dinner.

When the boys' attention turned forward, I slipped my hand into Sakura's and squeezed comfortingly once, before letting go. Blushing at my own actions, I trotted forward to stand between the two boys who were once again glaring at each other. I hoped my small comforting gesture had helped, though I got the feeling that my forwardness had probably just made the pink haired girl feel uncomfortable.

"_Hey! You guys finished with training!"_ A cheerful voice rang out. I saw all three preteens sigh in exasperation as the children hurried over to us.

"_Let's play ninja again!"_ Moegi demanded as she sidled up to me and clung onto my arm. She was a sneaky one. With me held down, she knew the preteens couldn't make a run for it.

However, the preteens were pretty much done playing around. All of us were tired from training and all we could really think about was food.

Naruto was half way into shaking his head, no, when suddenly he froze, and as one, the three preteens leapt to the side as a flurry of kunai landed where they were only moments before.

As if in slow motion, I saw Naruto's startled expression morph in to horror as he stared at something behind me. The next thing I knew, Moegi was wrenched from my arm and suddenly something grabbed me around the middle and pulled me back. I blinked stupidly as I tried to process how I was suddenly dangling in midair.

I looked up to see a masked man holding me with one arm. Moegi was tucked under his other arm.

"Na-" I wasn't even done with one syllable of Naruto's name when I felt a lurch and suddenly the ground was rushing by. The tumultuous up and down movement caused by the foreign ninja leaping away made my stomach flip flop unhappily. I felt terribly sick and frightened.

When we finally stopped moving, the foreign ninja quickly tied my hands behind my back and then tied both Moegi and me to a tree. The bastard even gagged both of us, though not very securely as I could wriggle the cloth away from my face with some effort.

My mind was a chaotic buzz of fear. Because of the gag, I felt as if I couldn't breath, and as a result, I breathed heavily through my nose, almost hyperventilating. I couldn't think at all. All I wanted to do was cry for Mom and Papa. 'But I'll probably never see Mom again and Papa is…Papa is probably d-' I couldn't finish the thought, and roughly, I shoved the memories away. Glancing towards my left, I saw that Moegi was just as terrified as me.

'Ok. Fay. You're the grown up here. You've got to get Moegi out of this.' I thought, trying uselessly to find some courage. I knew I needed to make enough noise to attract attention. This was a ninja village. Even if we were in a rather remote place, it didn't mean that no one would hear us if we made enough racket.

In my stress, I had practically ripped a chunk of skin off my thumb. Blood was flowing freely. Carefully, trying not to attract attention, I wrote on my palm the words, amplify and noise, using my blood as the ink. The words were probably crooked, and definitely not clear, but I had to try something.

Just when I finished, the preteens and the other two children arrived. 'Damn it! Why didn't they call for help?' I thought weakly. But…I already knew the answer to that. In my world where danger resulted in calling the police, asking for help was the obvious first step. In this world, the natural course of action was to take care of the danger yourself, never mind the fact that calling for help would be safer and smarter.

I saw Sasuke, Naruto and even Sakura draw weapons. All three faces were frozen into a mask of determination. Though I was happy they were worried about me, this happiness was completely eclipsed by my terror. I would never be able to live with myself if the preteens were hurt trying to protect my helpless ass.

Behind the gag, I drew a breath and screamed. Everyone in the vicinity froze and clutched their ears in pain, as my piercing shrill cry was amplified ten fold.

'I guess my seal worked…' I thought grimly to myself as I ignored the pain from my bleeding ears. I had damaged them with my scream.

As my shriek echoed and finally died away, there was a flurry of movement. Sasuke, Naruto and Sakura immediately rushed the foreign ninja from all sides. I was about to scream for help once more, but to my infinite shock, a small whisper made me look up to see Naruto.

Blinking stupidly at the sunny blond who was holding a finger up to his lips in a shushing motion, he shimmied down the tree and quickly freed me from my bounds. When I glanced to my left, I saw Sakura doing the same for Moegi while Sasuke carefully watched the foreign ninja's fight with…the preteens…making sure they wouldn't be caught.

As I tried to wrap my head around how the preteens were saving me, and fighting the foreign ninja at the same time, I remembered Naruto's abilities to create clones and transform them in to other shapes. As the preteens had no reason to fake being Sasuke and Sakura while saving me, I inferred that the ones fighting the foreign ninja were the clones.

Naruto picked me up bridle style, while Sakura did the same with Moegi. Then in a blur of motion, we ran. After a few seconds of running, I was set gently down next to Moegi.

'_Konohamaru, Udon, protect them okay.'_ Sakura ordered the two boys. Then, before I could protest, Sakura, Sasuke and Naruto ran off. I peered through the leaves to see the preteens engage the foreign enemy.

'Where are the other ninjas? Why haven't they come yet?' I wondered while frantically looking around me.

Then, I saw him - an adult, fully-grown ninja sitting lazily in a tree watching the fight below him. He didn't seem like he was planning to interfere anytime soon, nor was he making an effort to conceal himself.

Once I saw one, I started to see others as well. Camouflaged into the green of the trees, the ninjas watched the fight below them. I hoped to God that they would at least jump in to help if things got out of hand.

My fears for the preteens were unfounded. Within seconds, a bombardment of Naruto clones, helped by a flurry of well-timed kunai from Sakura, managed to easily distract the foreign ninja enough for Sasuke to flash in and kick their opponent out with a well-placed foot to the jaw.

I breathed a sigh of relief as the fight ended. Turning to glare accusingly at the watching ninjas up in the trees, I hurried out of forest into the clearing.

As I sprinted towards the three, with the children right behind me, I noticed that a ninja dressed in a green vest uniform had slung the foreign ninja onto his shoulder. With a swirl of leaves, he was gone, and with him, the silent audience disappeared as well, as if they had never been there. Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura hadn't even looked perturbed by the appearance of the adult. I bet they knew of their spectators long before I had.

"Are-" I meant to say, 'are you okay?' in Japanese, but my incredibly loud voice forced me to stop midway. I paused, blinking blankly, shocked that my voice seemed to be as loud as a blaring siren.

When I glanced down at my palm, I saw that my messy blood seal had left behind two perfectly round circles, one inside the other. It looked kind of like the speaker on a boom box. Shaking myself out of my dazed reaction, I hurried the last few steps forward towards the trio.

As Sasuke had been the one closest physically to the opponent, I checked him over first. Grabbing the wide-eyed boy, I ran my eyes down his front for any injuries, and then I spun him around to make sure he didn't have a kunai in his back or something.

Not seeing any outward sign of damage, I next grabbed Naruto and did the same process. Unfortunately, Naruto had yet to dispel his clones. My mind was so frantic that I couldn't think logically. Instead of asking which one was the real Naruto, I instead rushed about checking every single one.

As I was checking the fourth Naruto, with about twenty more to go, I heard an unmistakable snort of laughter, and giggles, behind me. When I spun around, I saw Sasuke and Sakura giggling (in Sasuke's case smirking) at me. Feeling a vibration in the Naruto I was grabbing onto, I looked back to the boy and saw a red faced Naruto, who immediately burst out into full-blown laughter at my disgruntled expression.

With a poof, all the extra Narutos, including the one I'd been checking over, disappeared, leaving behind only smoke. Naruto and Sakura were laughing at me, and even Sasuke was smiling (his version of doubling over in laughter.)

I felt myself turn pink. It really didn't help that the children were laughing in the background as well. Holding my head up haughtily, I stalked over to the preteens, grabbed Naruto, checked him over, and then did the same for Sakura. Then I bopped Naruto on the head to 'make sure' he wasn't a clone.

"_Hey!" _Naruto whined while giving me a big blue-eyed 'look'.

"Oh stop pouting you big orange dodo." I murmured back, though my murmur sounded more like a shout. I know, my retort made absolutely no sense, but really, it's hard coming up with a witty comeback on the spot.

X

"_Just great. Just absolutely wonderful! What now?!"_

We all flinched as Ren stalked toward us with a deadly glower.

After all the laughter had faded away, Naruto, being Naruto noticed the small amount of blood around my ears. Screeching in horror, he immediately slung me onto his back and ran off towards the hospital screaming for Ren the whole time.

Once we had arrived at said hospital, and Naruto saw Ren's murderous glare, I got the feeling he was kind of regretting his dramatic entry.

"_Fei no nee-chan's ears! Really loud! Blood!"_ Ren quickly cut off the blond's frantic chatter with an impatient wave of his hand.

Once he reached me, he let his warm chakra flow into my ear and assessed the damage. I sighed mentally in relief as the dull throbbing pain disappeared and my hearing cleared up.

"_I thought you were supposed to be watching over her."_ Ren grumbled angrily.

I frowned as I noticed Naruto and Sakura's abashed expressions, and Sasuke's sulky glower.

"_Oh not you."_ Ren said with an impatient flourish of his hand. _"I was talking to him."_

Suddenly out of nowhere, Death Cat appeared. _"I can't do anything if she decides to burst her own eardrums."_ He said with a shrug.

"_How did she burst her eardrums in the first place?"_ Asked Ren.

"_I don't know what Fei-san did, but she's somehow made it so her voice is ten times louder than it should be." _Sakura piped in.

"_Yeah! It was really, really, really loud! Louder than even Iruka-sensei when he's angry!"_ Naruto exclaimed.

Turning to me, Ren gently asked, _"Fei. Could you say something please?" w_hile pointing to his mouth insistently.

"Sorry." I whispered in Japanese as quietly as I feasibly could. It still sounded like I was speaking loudly.

Smiling at me reassuringly, Ren patted me on the head and said, "_It's okay."_

Sasuke, who had been silently studying me the whole time, suddenly said, _"Fei, scream Kakashi."_

I blinked at him in confusion, but before I could, a gloved hand unexpectedly covered my face muffling any sounds I would have produced.

"_Mah, mah. No need for that."_ Kakashi drawled.

'When did he get here?'

The preteens shared a conspiratory look.

"_Kakashi-sensei. Meet Fei-san, your new beacon."_

"_Yeah! This way you'll never get 'lost' on the road to life! Believe it!"_

"_Hn. Just follow the sound of your name."_

There was silence…

Kakashi had by then released me. I saw his eyes curl into his usual upside down U smile before he turned to Ren and demanded sharply, "_Fix her!"_

X

**A/N: Sorry for the really late update! In December I accepted an amazing program to study abroad slash research slash volunteer in Africa for a month and a half. Of course, there was no electricity, nevertheless Internet where I was staying. I just got back a week ago. I got accepted into the program back in August, but I hadn't been sure that I was going to go until almost the last minute. Lol, I was just being cowardly. Really glad I went though. I should have warned you guys about it. I'm really sorry. Hope you enjoyed this chapter.**

**Thank you to all my reviewers! I love you all! **


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Perverts and Blood Seals

'Single Quotes' = Thoughts

_Italics = Untranslated Japanese_

x

'I hate ninjas. I hate ninjas. I hate ninjas. I hate ninjas.' I twitched in frustration as another pebble bounced off my back

Finally, I couldn't take it any longer. I spun around and whispered, "I HATE YOU!" in Japanese. The ninja, who I directed my hate towards, flinched at my booming voice, and then grinned triumphantly. His friend, another fricken ninja, who had been following a few paces behind dropped a few bills into his waiting hands.

I blinked furiously as black spots danced across my vision thanks to my sudden movement while turning around. 'Damn anemia.' Yup, I was in a pretty bad mood.

I hate ninjas. Did I mention that yet? It had been five days since my kidnapping incident and currently, I was walking back to the hospital from the training grounds. Why was I walking back without the preteens from the training grounds? It was simple: the preteens were too busy.

From what I could understand, the slip of paper that Kakashi had given the preteens had been an application for some sort of very important contest or exam. I wasn't exactly sure which. What I did know was that the event would begin in two days, and as a result, the preteens had been training like maniacs for the last five days. Where before, their training ended at four pm, it now ended more around ten at night.

This meant that I had to get new babysitters. Of course, I still hung out with the preteens and Kakashi at their training area, but they weren't able to pick me up and escort me like before. Apparently, they started training at four in the morning now, and because they were training so early, they weren't allowed to work outside the hospital, as it would disturb the patients.

As a result, I usually ended up walking to the training grounds around lunchtime with some food that I would buy at the restaurants. I got paid money by the way. Not a lot, but more than enough for me to buy lunch for the five of us, and enough to buy dinner for myself. In the beginning, I thought I was mooching off the people here, but I realized that there was a purpose to them continuously taking care of me…but more about that later.

Back to my woes about my new babysitters… At first, I thought that Death Cat would take over, as he seemed to hang around us all the time observing me, but it seemed that his job of monitoring me had ended. He only came by at night to collect my seals. Instead, I was stuck with green vested morons – no offense to Kakashi.

I didn't even bother remembering their names because it was always a new pair every day. Now, I'm usually very friendly and slow to anger, but the new 'game' the ninjas had created, that revolved around me, was extremely annoying. Apparently, my loud voice was the joke of the village. Somehow, I'd become the sport for bored ninjas. In simple terms, whomever could get me to say anything, won money.

At the moment, everyone had been unsuccessful in removing my amplifying seal. I felt rather self-conscious about my ridiculously loud voice, so I made it a point to stop speaking. Unfortunately for me, the ninja majority deemed my self-imposed muteness as a challenge.

When I finished my whispered yell, I whirled around and started to speed walk back to the hospital, seething the whole way. Another pebble bounced off my back.

'That is it! Thing One and Thing Two are DEAD!' I thought murderously. I really didn't care that they were ninjas at that point. Truthfully, I kind of forgot because the way they acted was far from my image of shadow walking assassins.

I was halfway turned around, ready to head-butt them if I could, when I paused and let my rational side take over. A plan formed in my head. Instead of charging the ninjas like a mini bull, I instead gave them a sweet, angelic smile. The ninjas blinked and gave each other amused looks. They obviously knew I was planning something, but didn't feel threatened at all.

Still smiling happily, I about-faced and started my way back to the preteens' training grounds. The two ninja turds looked at me curiously, but turned to follow. Within minutes, I was back at the training field.

Kakashi and the preteens looked up, questioning expressions on their faces. Plastering on an anxious look, I hurried to stand behind Naruto who looked gentlemanly concerned by my distress. It was a strange look on the blond. Kakashi, of course saw through my antics immediately, if the flash of amusement I saw meant anything.

Murmuring softly, though of course this meant that everyone could hear, I said to Naruto in Japanese, "Help. Two perverts." I learned the word pervert thanks to Kakashi's habits.

The green vested duo stared at me in disbelief.

Kakashi obviously knew that I was faking, and I guessed that Sasuke and Sakura knew as well as they only looked curious at the turn of events. Despite his knowledge, Kakashi pointed at the duo and said in a overtly dramatic drawl, "_What! These two touched you in a naughty, naughty way? How scandalous."_

"_Naughty way? Touch? Pervert?"_ I heard Naruto growl.

Grinning, Sakura gasped, _"To a helpless civilian? How horrible!"_

"_Hn."_ Sasuke added with a smirk. I had no idea what that meant, but it definitely added to Naruto's mounting fury.

With a battle cry, Naruto summoned about thirty clones and together attacked the two ninjas.

Kakashi glanced down at the remaining two preteens. With a shrug, he said, _"Think of it as training?"_

The next thing I knew, Sasuke and Sakura had joined the fight. By then, I had learned that sparring was perfectly safe, so I wasn't too worried about the impromptu battle. They probably needed the experience for their exam anyways. Giving myself a mental pat on the back, I proceeded to watch as the surprised duo hastily dodged the numerous attacks.

x

It was with a subdued, rather exasperated pair of ninjas that I returned to the hospital with. I noticed with some amount of glee that they weren't throwing pebbles at me anymore.

Okay…seeing their morose expression, I kind of felt guilty.

'Maybe sic'ing the preteens at them was a bit mean…'

As one of the ninjas stumbled in exhaustion, the guilt skyrocketed up overwhelmingly. I was afraid that I had hurt the two ninjas with my childish actions, and internally, I could see the disappointed expressions of my parents. My eyes misted over at the mental image of Mom and Papa.

"I'm sorry," I whispered in Japanese as I spun around abruptly to face the duo. When I raised my eyes to meet their gaze, I saw two identically blank faces. Their eyes were like slabs of black stone, and I could neither read nor feel any emotions from them. I felt tears sting at the corner of my eyes as my face flushed red. Heat crawled up my neck as the sting of self-reproach and embarrassment took over.

I was just about ready to have a breakdown, when suddenly, the two ninjas grinned as one. One ruffled my hair as the other handed him a few bills. I noticed that the one who received money was the ninja who I had seen stumble in exhaustion. Their once slouched, tired body postures were gone. In fact, they looked as good as new. Even their clothes had miraculously fixed themselves.

'I see…so it was all an act,' I thought slowly.

…

…

…

"F—k you!"

x

"_This is going to be a regular occurrence isn't it.'_ Ren sighed as his glowing green hands fixed up my ruptured eardrums. Cursing furiously at Thing One and Thing Two hadn't been my brightest idea.

"Bad," I whispered in Japanese as I pointed accusingly at the two sheepish looking ninjas.

Ren pinned the two with a glare.

I saw them shift nervously, look at each other, and then with a poof, both of them disappeared (fled).

'_Good riddance.'_ Ren muttered.

'Cowards,' I thought with a huff of annoyance.

'_All right, all done. Please be more careful Fei-san, okay?'_

I nodded to show him I understood. In the month and a half I'd been in this world, I'd come to slowly, but surely add to my vocabulary. Of course, I'd been in a coma when I'd first arrived, and stuck in a cell for a while too. As a result, my Japanese hadn't grown as much as I'd hoped. Still, I was working extremely hard and could now piece together very simple sentences and understand roughly what others were saying. It helped a lot that people would simplify their words for me.

Out of all the people I knew in this world, Sakura was the most helpful. She seemed to find delight in teaching me the language, helpfully pointing out objects then saying slowly and clearly their names. Naruto tried to help as well, but more often then not, he ended up confusing me, as he would add the strange phrase, 'Dattebayo' at the end of his sentences.

The look of disgust on Sasuke's face, and the look of horror on Sakura's face when I'd copied the blond boy had made me think I'd broken some important cultural rule by saying the phrase. Perhaps it was inappropriate for females to use?

Either way, I was becoming relatively comfortable with the language, and found myself proud that I was able to get the gist of most things said to me.

When Ren exited the room, I sighed unhappily. It was lonely without the loud preteens with me.

Bored out of my mind, I clambered off my bed and made my way over to a desk that had been set up for me a few days earlier. It was for the sole purpose of creating and writing seals.

Let me explain. After my kidnapping incident, I'd realized that somehow, I'd been able to successfully create another seal. It took me only a few minutes of careful trial and error to find out that it was my blood that made the seals work.

My stinging thumb where I'd picked the skin straight off helped me come to this conclusion. I remembered how I'd picked at my skin the first few weeks in this world. I hadn't thought much of it at the time, but I remembered that my palm had been minutely smeared with blood from when I'd tried to wipe away the small beads of blood off my thumb.

The first seal I created after my new revelation had been a glowing seal in which the characters on the paper shifted into a form of a flashlight and glowed brightly. From that seal, I started to experiment. After a day of trial and error, I concluded that:

1. My blood was necessary for the seals to work

2. The seals had to be written in the language I am most comfortable with (English)

3. The more blood, the brighter the seal's light so I guessed the more blood the more potent the seal

4. The seal had to be less then 30 words (including words such as 'the' 'and' 'a')

5. I can't have more than one seal influencing my body at a time

6. The seals had a time limit, the more blood, the longer the seal stays

7. Some seals just won't work

Number 5 was especially frustrating because I wasn't able to place a translation seal on myself because I still had the 'amplifying sound' seal on me.

Another thing that really soured my mood was that no matter how I wrote it, I could not seem to create a seal that would remove or cancel other seals. I really wanted to get rid of the amplifying seal so I could try a seal on myself to see if I could transport home, but any seal that would directly and physically impact me would just sizzle away whenever I'd touch it.

My translation seal had used only a small of blood but it had lasted for over a week. I'd used a lot more blood for the amplifying seal so I was worried that this seal would last a really long time.

Another observation was that I literally could not be God. I couldn't manipulate and control matter to create food from thin air. I couldn't create a seal that would change lead into gold, and I couldn't create a seal that would cause a plate to dance around. In other words, seals and chakra were not magic.

What I could do and couldn't do was hard to determine just from thinking about it. Trial and error was my best bet. Unfortunately, this meant that I couldn't go wild with my seals. For example, lets say I created a seal that would let me jump up ridiculously high, and it was successful. However, what if I wasn't able to create a seal that would help me survive the impact on my way down? I would probably die.

These thoughts helped me be cautious and hesitant as I worked on my seals. I didn't want to do something that could hurt me, or hurt others. For once, my paranoia was coming in handy. Heck, I'd already been hurt by my own seals. My amplifying seal had damaged my ears after all.

After four days of experimenting, I'd successfully created two functioning, and useful seals. One was a water seal that I designed to take Oxygen and Hydrogen gas from the air to create a small pool of water. Death Cat had checked the water and had deemed it safe for consumption, but we didn't know what would happen when the seal faded away.

I almost cried when they force fed my water to a mouse. Luckily for the mouse, when the seal faded, the water not drunk just evaporated back into gas while the water inside the body caused no adverse effect other than a small burp or two from the mouse.

The mouse had been a little dehydrated afterwards as we had only fed the mouse my seal water, but overall was fine.

It seemed that my seal water would be the perfect thing in an emergency. It could potentially keep you from dying of thirst until you could find a real water source. In other words, for a short while, my seal water would keep you hydrated, but like it never happened, the water would disappear after a set amount of time.

My second seal was a heating seal. I designed it for Naruto actually, as he seemed to find the wait for ramen water to cook too frustratingly long. I'd created the seal on a little whim, basing it off what little I knew of microwaves. As people of this world have ovens and microwaves, I didn't think it would be that useful. Apparently having a seal that could heat food quickly without any sound or light from a fire was very useful.

From testing, it was found that five drops blood mixed with a small glob of ink would dilute the blood just enough so that the seals would last for five days. This meant that water would be released and stay as water for five days and the heating seal would be able to heat for five days with just the addition of a little bit of activation chakra for each heating for five days.

This is how I contributed to this world, and how I came to earn pocket money and even a small salary of sorts. When I'd demonstrated my two tested, completed seals for Hokage-sama, Kakashi, Ren, the preteens and Death Cat, they had seemed very taken with them. My heating seal especially delighted Naruto.

The next thing I knew, I was commissioned by the Hokage to create my seals on a daily basis. As I was the only one who could create the seals, I felt that the amount of money I was being paid was very little – you know, supply and demand- but truthfully, I didn't really care.

The ninjas had given me a place to stay, and I was wholly dependent on them. Becoming useful to them was enough for me. I knew that though the preteens and Ren were kind enough, the others were killers and fighters. They were soldiers and I knew that they would not hesitate to force me to create seals if they had to. Being relatively free, and being paid (no matter how little) for my services were good enough for me. Asking for more could be precarious, and until I grew more comfortable, I wasn't planning on pushing my luck.

I found that I couldn't create more than ten seals a day. My chakra stores were too low for any more. I wasn't sure what would happen if my blood and someone else's chakra were used however. It was something that I needed to test out.

I usually finished up my seals in the evening before bed because otherwise I would be exhausted all day long. As I finished pushing chakra into the last seal for the day (a water seal by the way), I sighed and gingerly stacked up the papers into a neat little pile.

The usual weariness of low chakra levels caused me to sigh in exhaustion as I gingerly made my way over to the bathroom to ready myself up for bed. When I finished up my nightly ritual, I shuffled out of the bathroom and slipped into the bed with a small oomph.

I sat there on my bed wriggling my cold toes underneath the blankets to warm them up, and waited. My eyes were slipping halfway shut and I'd already had two jaw cracking yawns before the window clicked open and Death Cat slipped in.

"Good morning," I softly whispered to him in greeting.

"_Good evening," _He corrected me. I blushed at my mistake.

"Good evening," I repeated dutifully.

Death Cat nodded in acknowledgement and slipped towards the desk where my seals waited for him. He stretched out one gloved hand and picked up the seals and rolled them up before depositing them into a small tube he had hanging from a leather cross body strap.

Death Cat reached into his vest and pulled out a small bundle of bills, my pay for the day. He gave me another nod of farewell, but before he could leave, I called out to him in Japanese, "Wait." He paused, and turned his masked face towards me.

I shifted nervously underneath my blankets, thinking carefully the words I wished to say.

"Tomorrow no ten seals. Tomorrow four seals."

Death Cat cocked his head to one side as he made sense of my stumbling Japanese.

"_Why?"_ He asked me.

"Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura. Two days, big day. Gift." I was trying to convey that I wanted to give each of the preteens one heating and one water seal for their exam day, which was in two days.

I was slightly worried that he wouldn't allow it, but to my relief, he nodded his head once, and disappeared without a sound. I sighed in relief. I couldn't wait to see the preteens' faces when I gave each of them two seals. I knew that they had been really intrigued by them, and I got the feeling that the seals would be useful. A ninja test was probably fraught with dangers, and at the very least my seals would help them with water and food.

Sighing, I slipped off into sleep. Unfortunately, disturbing dreams of me being split open for my blood, which was then bottled up and sold for 100 dollars apiece, plagued me.

**A/N: First of all, thank you to all my reviews, subscribers and readers. I really appreciate all of you. Also, I wish to say that I have been amazed by the amount of support my little story has received. I never expected to reach 100 reviews, nevertheless over 300! **

**This chapter was a bit more serious then the last few, and I know I threw a ton of information at you guys. If you have any questions, I would be more than happy to answer them. Just PM or review me. Either one, though I can't really reply to the guest reviews. More clarifications on the seals and their limits will be explained in the next chapter as well. **

**Oh and note about the translation seal. The reason why the translation seal works is that it forces the brain to remember and use all the times Fay has come in contact with Japanese. The brain is like a really advanced computer, and if a computer can find patterns and translate languages, the brain can as well. The seal takes the fragments of memories from watching subtitled Japanese movies and such to translate it into English. Because there are so many gaps in Fay's experience, the translation seal is broken and a lot like Google Translate. **

**Finally, as promised, because we've passed 300 reviews, another extra from Sakura's point of view. This one is dedicated to Generator X who asked me for a short in honor of his/her? birthday, which was quite a ways back. Oh well, happy late birthday!**

The first time Sakura met Fei, she had noticed that her fingers were bleeding. 'She picks at the skin around her nails,' she thought with a mental frown. Then she noticed how small and soft her hands were. 'Civilian. Hasn't seen a day of work.'

Truthfully, Sakura hadn't known what to think of Fei. At first, she had just been like a lost little kitten. Something that one couldn't help but want to coo at and help. However, slowly as Fei's presence changed and bonded Team 7 together, Sakura realized that she had stopped seeing Fei as a pity case. Instead, she had become an integral part of her little family.

This bothered Sakura because for as long as she had lived, the only important people in her life had always been her parents, Ino and Sasuke-kun. Now, as Sakura laughed and smiled and basked in the familiar presence of her teammates, who truthfully were only together so much because they were technically on a mission all day long, she realized that others had squeezed into her heart, even Naruto for all his ridiculous ways.

At the moment, Sakura was clutching a small slip of paper, worried and doubtful and afraid for what was to come. 'Am I ready? Am I ready?' She questioned repeatedly as she glanced once again at the Chuunin Exam application.

Suddenly, she was startled out of her cloud of depression when a soft (civilian) hand slipped into her own. At first, she thought wildly that it was Sasuke-kun, but realized almost instantly that that would be impossible.

When Sakura quickly glanced to her right, she saw that it was Fei. Fei gave her hand a soft squeeze, and then blushing, the girl quickly let go and hurried ahead to stand between the two boys.

Sakura didn't know what to think. For a split second, she thought she fell in love, and the idea left her feeling horrified. 'OH MY GOD! YOU LIKE GIRLS! I LIKE GIRLS! OH MY GOD! LOOK AT SASUKE-KUN! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!' Inner Sakura screeched wildly in her head. But then as the split second of questioning her own sexual orientation passed, she sighed in relief as she realized that yes, she did love Fei, but like a family, like a sister.

'Damn. That was hecka scary. For a minute I thought my whole life had been a lie and I liked Ino-pig or something….'

Both Inner and Outer Sakura paused as yet another panic attack almost threatened to consume them both before they decided once again that yes, they liked Ino like a sister and like a good friend (despite their current estrangement).

'Ugh. This puberty thing is really tough.' Sakura thought wearily.

'If only puberty was a human. Then we could SHANNARO his ass!' Said Inner Sakura.

'I need psychiatric help…' Sakura thought with a sigh.

**A/N: Lol. Sorry for the randomness. Someone once told me that during puberty, most people question their sexual orientation at least once, and I thought, Sakura's 13, she's in her teens now, why not?**


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Mind Reading and Drained

'Single Quotes' = Thoughts

_Italics = Untranslated Japanese _

When my eyes opened in the morning, I immediately closed them again and tried desperately to fall back asleep. No one should wake up feeling more exhausted. This was probably why teenagers were so grumpy all the time. They weren't yet used to being sleep deprived constantly…or maybe they were just hormonal.

'Coffee….Coffee….Coffee.' I thought dully to myself. I was a Seattleite, which means that I'm pretty much addicted to coffee. Alas, in this world, the closest I could find to coffee was tea. At least I could pretend the drink was my precious coffee. However, even getting tea was too much effort. I'd have to walk all the way to the cafeteria and I was much too lazy to do that. Now if it was coffee…

I let myself lay in my little bed for about 15 more minutes before I slowly sat up with a soft groan of annoyance as the need for the bathroom beat my fatigue. I slipped out from beneath the sheets and wobbled my way over to the bathroom. I felt lightheaded and weary, rather like after a bout of the stomach flu.

In the bathroom, I hurriedly took a shower, and brushed my teeth. As I finished, I observed my reflection with an analytical eye. I'd grown slightly darker, probably from being in the sun so much lately. My hair had grown past my shoulders, and now tickled my back.

Suddenly I frowned as I carefully took one finger and pulled down the bottom lid of one eye. The inside of my lower eyelid was much too pale, and I knew immediately what this meant, anemia. I glanced down at my fingers and this time, really looked.

'Pale nails, cold fingers despite sleep which should have caused max circulation, and a bruise?'

My attention wavered from my fingers to my arm. 'How did I get that?' I thought warily as I prodded the faintly green yellow bruising on my left forearm. I was quickly distracted from my bruise by the knock on the door.

"Yes!" I murmured out in Japanese. My amplified voice had quieted some, but not so much. I got the feeling that when it did fade, I would have trouble raising my voice up loudly enough.

Quickly, I ran a few fingers through my damp hair. After making sure that nothing was amiss with my appearance, such as toothpaste in my hair or something, I opened the bathroom door.

"_Good morning Fei-san."_ Ren greeted me cheerfully as he looked up from his clipboard. I noticed with some curiosity that a small desk with a microscope and a chair had been set up in the room.

I murmured a soft greeting, plastering on a hopefully healthy face, before moving my way over to my bed for my usual check up.

Ren's hands glowed green as he checked me over. I glanced behind my shoulder to look at him and noticed immediately the frown on his face the longer his green hands rested on my back. Finally, he pulled back and asked, "Have_ you been using your blood without me supervising you?"_

Seeing my confused expression, Ren sighed before tapping his chin thoughtfully.

"_He's requested a talk…today's as good as any."_ He muttered to himself.

Finally coming to a decision, Ren left the room with a, "_I'll be right back!"_

As soon as he left, I ended up slumping in exhaustion. My heart was fluttering in my chest as I took a shaky breath. I felt winded and sick, rather like I was going to faint.

I didn't know why I felt this way. I never made blood seals without Ren supervising. He would always heal the cut on my finger after the needed amount of blood for the day was dripped into a small bowl full of ink.

'Maybe even 50 drops of blood is too much every day.' I thought carefully, though personally I didn't think it was all that much.

After about 20 minutes, the door opened, and Ren slipped in with a tray of food. I smiled at his return, but it immediately slid off my face when I saw who was coming in behind him.

'Inoichi, aka Boar-man the mind reader, just my luck.' I really didn't like him; he scared me. My mind had always been safe, it was the only place I could ever have true privacy, but apparently not in this world.

I eyed Inoichi suspiciously, and gave Ren a 'how-could-you?' look. Ren just blinked innocently. My accusing stare increased tenfold, but I gave up when I saw the blue-haired man instead settle down at the small desk with the microscope and busied himself with the knobs.

"_Good morning Fei-san_" Inoichi said with a friendly enough smile.

"Good morning", I whispered back in Japanese grudgingly.

He sighed at my less than agreeable attitude and took a seat by my bedside. When he moved his hand towards me, I flinched and shook my head furiously.

Inoichi cocked his head to the side, observing me cautiously, before heaving out another sigh. He didn't retract his hand, but he also didn't try to touch me either. Instead he held out his hand, palm up. There was a patient look on his face as he gazed at me with his strange blue eyes without pupils. I immediately flushed red in embarrassment. He was treating me like a spoiled little girl.

'It didn't hurt last time…and we can understand each other in my mind. I could ask him some questions.'

Looking at his calm serious face, I knew that he wasn't going to back down. At least this time he was polite enough to let me make the decision. With a mental groan of disbelief at myself, I hesitantly placed my hand in his.

Immediately, the world went dark and then I found myself standing next to Inoichi in…in my own house. Everything was just as I remembered it: the cream white walls, the oriental lamps, the cool hardwood floor, the funny haiku magnets on the refrigerator, my papa's collection of fore-edge paintings proudly on display, my mom's collection of malformed skittles (don't ask), and even the small green stain above the clock caused by an April Fool's prank gone wrong.

I was so absorbed in taking in the sight of our living room that I was taken by complete surprise when Inoichi suddenly said, "It's a nice home." I'd completely forgotten that he was there.

For a second, I felt an intense flash of utter hate towards Inoichi for snapping me from my own fantasy. I had for just a bit deluded myself into believing I'd somehow returned back home. The instant this thought crossed my mind, the walls bulged unnaturally, and I heard my own voice whisper throughout the room, "I hate you. Why are you here? You ruined everything. I thought I was home until…"

The sound of my ugly, irrational hate startled me so much that the sentence changed midway into, "Oh God. I didn't mean that. Wait, he can hear everything. He can…oh no!"

I screwed my eyes shut and desperately tried NOT to think of anything embarrassing. Of course, it had the opposite effect. A door materialized in the middle of the living room and flung itself open. Suddenly, I was watching myself trip in the hallway on my first day as a freshman in high school. I winced visibly.

Then another door appeared and we were in another memory. I was dancing to 'It's Raining Men', thinking I was alone in my room. My memory self turned around and screamed as I saw my Grandma, Aunt, Uncle and Cousin all looking at me with raised eyebrows.

"Make it stop." I moaned as another fricken door appeared. Bam, I was wearing a hideous bumblebee costume, bam, I was being chased by a clown, bam, I was crying while watching A Walk to Remember, smearing snot and tears all over my now ex-boyfriend's shoulder.

Suddenly, a firm hand fell on my shoulder. "Calm down. Think of something calming, something that you enjoy."

I took a shuddering breath. Another door appeared and opened. I saw that it was a memory of when I was 7 years old. I was happily flipping over rocks with my foot while walking on the beach. I exclaimed excitedly every time I saw the tiny crabs scuttle away as I uplifted their hiding place.

Papa was holding my hand, making sure I wouldn't slip on the slippery algae covered rocks.

Mom was battling a lost war with her hair as the wind whipped it all around her.

I felt my muscles ease. A dull feeling of nostalgia and melancholy overtook me as I watched my past-self point to the sunset, exclaiming how it looked like the water was on fire.

Turning towards Inoichi, I said, "This didn't happen last time." To his credit, the blond didn't even blink at the faint accusatory tone in my voice.

"I was in control last time. I saw what I wanted. This time, you're in control. I can only see what you show me." He shrugged.

"Only what I show you…" I muttered to myself thoughtfully.

Inoichi's eyes bulged in surprise as suddenly we were on a helicopter over the Grand Canyon. I laughed in delight at how vivid my memories were. It was like I was there all over again.

"Grand canyon! Isn't it beautiful?" I screamed at Inoichi over the deafening noise.

Inoichi leaned his head out, looking down with an excited glint in his eyes.

I was having fun sharing my world with his. His world was so amazing, the people had superhuman abilities after all, but my world had amazing things too. Ok…I was bragging. It soothed my homesickness a bit, so I humored myself.

The helicopter disappeared and the two of us were on the Great Wall of China. As far as the eyes could see, the wall stretched on and on and on.

Next we stood in the cool dark Hoh rainforest. We were completely surrounded by ethereal moss green trees.

We were in South Korea during the 2002 World Cup, watching the street cheering. The streets filled with red erupted into screams of delight as a goal was made. (**A/N: Look up 2002 street cheering…it's crazy)**

The next memory was when I visited the leaning tower of Pisa. I glanced at Inoichi and was amused to see a raised eyebrow and look of confusion on his face.

"It's called the leaning tower of Pisa."

"Appropriate name…"

I knew I needed to stop wasting time and buckle down to business. So with disappointment, I let the two of us return back to my home. Taking a seat on the couch, I gestured for Inoichi to take a seat as well.

"You've been to many places."

"Traveling is easier in my world."

"Yes. I could tell. What contraption were we in when flying?"

"A helicopter. But that's a special case. We usually travel in cars or planes."

The T.V showcased the said items as soon as I thought them. Inoichi observed the cars thoughtfully.

"Could you make one?"

"No, definitely not. They're much too complicated for me."

A look of disappointment. I sighed. "You men and your cars."

Inoichi gave me a skeptical look. I shrugged in response.

"Tell me Fei-san. Have you been spilling your blood without telling Ren-san?" I blinked in surprise at this abrupt question.

"No…I always make sure to have Ren with me when I do that. He heals it right away afterwards." Inoichi's heavy frown was starting to make me nervous. "Why, is there something wrong?"

"Ren-san tells me that your blood levels are surprisingly low. Almost as if you've lost a lot of blood."

"I have been feeling kind of off today…is…is everything okay? Am I sick? I am anemic, but it's never been this bad before."

"Ren-san says it should be okay. He'll change your diet accordingly, and for a while, they want you to refrain from making any more seals."

"But I need to make seals for Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke!"

"Your genin companions?"

I nodded furiously. "They're doing some sort of Chuunin thingy. I wanted to give them each two seals."

A few seconds of silence, before Inoichi replied, "All right. Ren-san says just this once."

"Um…Inoichi, I have a question."

"Yes?"

"Is…is there any way for me to get back home?"

He shook his head. "No. Not that we know of."

I sighed, unhappy, but unsurprised.

"Could you tell me a bit more about this world? You're all ninjas, correct?"

"Yes. We are _shinobi_, and you are currently in the village of Konohagakure in the Land of Fire."

He went on to explain to me the system of this world: how each major country had a ninja village, how those with headbands were ninjas, just basic things about the world here.

I was alarmed by some of his tales, especially about the 'Bloody Mist'. I knew he was telling me these horrible stories about other villages and the world outside of Konoha in order to place his village in the best light possible. I also knew it was in order to make sure I wouldn't try to leave Konoha. Despite knowing this, Inoichi was successful. Stepping a foot out of the relative safety of this village was far, far off on my list of things to do.

Seeing that I was successfully cowed, Inoichi changed the subject back to me.

"Your sealing abilities, it…is very unusual. Do you have anyone named Uzumaki in your family?"

"Uzumaki? Like Naruto? No. I'm pretty sure I don't."

"Can anyone in your family also seal?"

"Chakra doesn't exist in my world, nevertheless sealing. My blood being all…weird, is a first for me, for anyone in my world really."

"Ren-san is looking at your blood under the microscope now."

"Is he!?" I was surprised by this admission. Though I should have guessed.

"He says it's beyond anything he has seen before. It has no apparent difference from regular blood cells except that it holds a considerable amount of chakra. He says that when he drained the blood cells of your chakra, they immediately started swelling and moving erratically."

"The blood cells moved erratically?!"

How was this possible? I didn't understand. Everything I knew about blood, which wasn't a lot, told me that they only moved thanks to muscle contraction and the heart pumping. I didn't understand what Ren meant. Was it the effect of chakra perhaps?

"He says that's how all the others died. They didn't receive a chakra infusion in time, and as a result, it didn't kick start the body's chakra development. Because of that, the blood swelled and essentially they died from all the pressure from within themselves."

I remembered the broken blood vessels on the corpses in the pictures. That explained a lot.

"So, is that why my blood is so weird? Because my body is saturating it with chakra in order to survive?"

"Yes. Ren says this is also probably why your chakra levels are so low despite your continuously growing core. About 90% of your chakra is going towards your blood. A lot more than needed to maintain stability on your blood actually."

"So…what does this mean?"

"Nothing much."

I didn't believe him. I wasn't sure why I felt suspicious, but I was. Something told me that my unique physical attribute would have far more consequences than he suggested. He knew I was suspicious; it was pretty obvious thanks to being in my uncontrolled mind. Despite knowing how wary I was, he didn't say anything to try to reassure me.

"I need to ask you one last question Fei-san. That bomb that destroyed…"

"Hiroshima?"

"Yes. Do you know how to make a bomb like that?"

I shuddered at the thought, and eyed Inoichi warily. I knew the bare basics of the science behind the hydrogen bomb, but little more than that. Thank God for small mercies. A small voice whispered in my head, 'you might be able to make a hydrogen bomb seal?' but I squished the thought quickly. I hoped Inoichi hadn't noticed my brief lapse.

"No." I replied honestly, looking Inoichi straight in the eyes.

"I see. Thank you for your time."

When I blinked, I was back in the hospital room. My vision blurred, and I had to rub my eyes a bit to clear them. By the time my vision cleared enough for me to see clearly, Inoichi was gone.

Ren smiled at me cheerfully. I gave him the stink-eye, but all he did was grin wider and ruffle my hair fondly.

"_Eat."_ He gently prodded me. "_Then we'll make Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke's seals."_ I nodded to show him I understood.

I glanced down at the tray he had set on my lap. Inoichi had spoken the truth, Ren was going to change my diet. Instead of the usual fish, rice, vegetable and miso soup there was a small stack of dried seaweed, a small bowl of brown rice, an egg, and beef stew.

After finishing my food and cleaning up a bit, Ren handed me a small bowl full of ink, only six globs of ink instead of ten today. He wrapped my left index finger with string, gathering as much blood as possible into one finger. Then with one glowing green hand, he numbed my finger. With his other, he made a small chakra scalpel and gently cut.

Blood quickly dripped into the bowl I held. After 30 drops, Ren effortlessly healed my finger, and unwrapped the string. He handed me a small brush, which I used to mix the ink and blood together. Finally, we were done. Giving me a small encouraging nod, Ren slipped out the door with the dirty trays to take back to the kitchen.

I clambered down from my bed, careful to not spill any ink, and sat down at my work desk. Pulling out a fresh sheet of paper, I carefully, oh so gingerly, wrote out my first seal, then the next, then the next.

Once I made sure that all the seals were drawn correctly, I gathered chakra in my hands and held them over the seals. One by one, the seals flashed blue and changed forms until I was left with three water seals and three heating seals.

The water seals design looked like a small water drop in the middle of a swirl. The heating seal just looked like a microwave. Very self-explanatory. As soon as my chakra entered the seals, the ink dried immediately, so I didn't worry when I rolled up the seals and secured them with a rubber band.

With the leftover ink, I just drew a ton of nonsense scribbles on a piece of paper until the ink ran out. It would be useless that way. Then I shredded the paper and threw it away. Finally done, I crawled back into bed, determined to take a nap.

x

My nap lasted longer than I thought it would. I woke up to the sound of Naruto calling my name. When I blinked and quickly snapped my eyes open, I saw that Naruto was crouched on the windowsill giving me a wide cheeky grin. A quick glance at the clock showed me that it was already 12:45. I was usually at the training grounds by 12:15. He was saying something to me, but I was so ruffled, that I didn't hear or understand him at all.

"Sorry Naruto!" I exclaimed/whispered, scrambling up from the bed. I immediately tripped from a combination of tangling on the sheets and dizziness. Luckily, Naruto dove down under me so his body cushioned my fall. With a poof, Naruto disappeared.

'He was a clone!' I realized. Hurriedly pulling on one of my shirts that I had bought while shopping with Sakura, a pair of nondescript black pants that Sasuke had donated, and a pair of standard blue sandals that Sakura had gifted me with, I grabbed the seals and quickly left the hospital. I completely ignored the two new green-vested ninjas who rapidly followed me.

Once I made it to the nearest restaurant, I quickly ordered food for everyone. The man at the counter gave me a strange look when I pulled out a bright orange frog wallet, a gift from Naruto.

When I finally arrived at the training ground, I was out of breath, pale as sheet, and sweating like a pig.

"_Naruto! I told you to tell Fei-san that she didn't have to buy lunch for us today, and to instead get some rest!" _

"_I did!"_

"_Hn."_ Sasuke grunted as he took the food off my hands and firmly pointed me towards a tree with a 'go-there-and-sit' look. I was getting really, really good at getting whole sentences from Sasuke's grunts and glares.

Kakashi eyed me thoughtfully. _"Hm…wind-jutsu. Definitely would work today..."_ Three identical murderous glares from the preteens made Kakashi quickly say, _"Now my cute little genins, I was just observing, I wasn't going to of course."_

"_You and your crazy desire to use wind jutsus on Fei-san…" _Muttered Sakura.

"_Mah, mah. I just asked you guys once if you think it would be possible. I never said I would…yet."_

"_That's what you said last time too!"_ Naruto roared while pointing an accusing finger at the silver-haired man.

"_Hn." _ Growled Sasuke.

"_Yeah, what Sasuke-kun said."_

"_Damn it Kakashi-sensei. If we come back after the Chuunin exams and Fei no nee-chan tells us you knocked her over with a wind jutsu, we're going __**to kick your butt/castrate you!**__" _Sakura said at the same time as Naruto.

Twin looks of shock from Kakashi and Naruto.

"_Um…Sakura-chan. I don't think we need to go that far…"_

Whatever Naruto said, it seemed Sasuke and Kakashi were in full agreement with. Sakura blushed a bit, but held up her head while patting me on the shoulder comfortingly. I had no idea what was going on.

"_That's what you think."_ She quipped back.

x

While eating lunch together, Kakashi's eyes drifted towards the seals that I had set next to me, reminding me that I had yet to give the seals to the preteens yet.

"Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura! Here, gift. Good luck. Chuunin." I managed to say with my meager Japanese while unrolling my seals. I happily handed one water and heat seal to each of them.

Eyes wide in surprise and delight, they took the seals, and observed them curiously.

"_Wow! This is great! Thank you so much Fei-sa…onee-san!" _Sakura exclaimed.

"_Ah! Thank you, thank you!" _ Naruto cheered.

"_Hn."_ Sasuke grunted. This particular grunt, I knew meant, 'thanks-but-I'm-too-embarrassed-to-say-out-loud'.

x

That night, I decided to stay with the preteens until they finished their training. Because they had their exam the next morning, they didn't train too long or hard. Once they finished, the four escorted me back to the hospital. During lunch, Kakashi had had a word with my two escorts, and they had nodded before poofing away.

Once we made it back to the hospital, I gave each of them a hug, (yes, even Sasuke, who stayed as stiff as a board throughout the whole thing) and wished them all luck.

I sighed unhappily as they walked away, heading over to their homes no doubt. Kakashi dropped a hand onto my head. _"They'll come see you after the exam."_

I finally dragged up enough courage to ask the question I had been so afraid of asking. "Is Chuunin exam…dangerous?"

Kakashi glanced down at me, and smiled his trademark crinkle-eyed upside down U smile. "_Yes."_

I shuddered at this admission.

"_They'll be fine."_ Kakashi reassured me.

I didn't believe him.

x

I slept fitfully that night. I had horrible dreams where the preteens were corned by terrifying creatures that attacked them with wickedly sharp swords.

My nightmares bled into reality when a loud clang of metal on metal, and a sharp twinge of pain shocked me awake. It was still dark outside.

Then I saw them. Two figures dressed in black were attacking each other furiously with weapons and hand-to-hand combat. Sparks flew from the sheer intensity of their metal weapons clashing against each other.

Trembling in fear, confusion and terror, I watched with wide shocked eyes as the two ninjas fought to kill each other.

"_Scream."_ A familiar voice snapped at me. It was Death Cat!

Obeying him instantly, I let out an earsplitting (literally) shriek that echoed throughout the whole building. My scream was cut short when a kunai was thrown into my shoulder by the unknown ninja. He was too late though, my scream had been loud enough, and he/she knew it.

I choked out a sob as I clutched at my shoulder where the kunai was digging into, trying as hard as possible to not faint or barf. Through my tear-blurred eyes, I watched as the one with a crow mask threw a few round objects at the ground. With a whoosh, thick dark smoke filled the room, causing me to cough and tear up even more.

By the time the room had cleared up, the room was filled with ninjas in green-vests, and medics. Someone had turned the lights on. I saw Death Cat crouching at the window, looking out into the dark. The enemy ninja with a crows mask was nowhere to be seen.

"_Fei-san. Fei…"_ I heard faintly through my bloody, ruined ears. I looked up to see Ren coming towards me quickly. His face was pale, as he looked at my arm. When I glanced down, I choked down a scream as I saw a rubber tube coming out of my arm. A broken bag of half filled blood lay forgotten on the ground.

**A/N: Sorry for the delay everyone. I had midterms, then finals a week after that so I was super busy. Spring Break started today, and so I immediately started writing this. Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Questions are welcome, and criticisms are welcome! **

**P.S. Thank you to all my readers, reviewers and subscribers! Also, I've added a few stories into my Favorite list because some people were asking for story recommendations. These are all stories that are either Completed or stories I feel are awesome, but don't get as nearly as much attention as they should. Hope you enjoy them.**


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

_Reversal and Bed Rest_

_This chapter is dedicated to Kenneth. May you be liberated._

'Single Quotes' = Thoughts

_Italics = Untranslated Japanese_

_* = Clarifying note at end of chapter_

I couldn't take my eyes off of the bag of blood. Ren seemed to think that I had gone into shock, but it was actually the opposite. A strange calm had fallen over me, and my mind whirred with questions and answers. I felt a bit paranoid actually.

'**What?** Someone was stealing my blood. **How?** They placed me in some kind of sleep and was collecting blood from my arm through the use of a rubber tube. **Who?** Death Cat? No, it was probably the crow-masked man. **Why?** They either wanted to use my blood to make seals or study it. **When?** While I was asleep. Judging by my anemia, the night before as well. **Where?** In this hospital room that I thought was safe. In this village supposedly crawling with highly trained ninjas. In this world that wants to cultivate me, use me.'

"_Fei-san. It's okay; lets get this out of you. Don't worry, you're safe now." _Ren whispered soothingly. His eyes were so gentle and kind as he effortlessly pulled the tube out of my arm and quickly healed the area. I noticed this time there was no lasting bruise.

Still clutching the kunai in my shoulder, I stared at Ren with wide blank eyes. He murmured comforting, reassuring words in a desperate bid to calm me down. I didn't know why, I was already calm, but I supposed that my eerie silence and staring was taken as a sign of distress and terror.

'I need to leave. I have to find a way back home.' I thought. The idea of becoming some sort of blood bank for the rest of my life was terrifying. Outwardly, I gave Ren a shaky smile. "I'm okay." I whispered in Japanese.

Ren seemed relieved that I was seemingly back to normal. He pulled my hand away from the kunai. _"This will hurt."_ Ren said, before quickly and abruptly pulling out the knife from my shoulder.

I gagged and was sick all over myself. Ren's face was a cool mask of professionalism. He ignored my whimpering and retching and instead worked as fast as he could to heal me. I wanted so badly to be knocked out. I didn't know why he hadn't done that actually.

I was so focused on Ren, staring at his eyes that refused to look at me, that I was oblivious to the nurses who ran around us like headless chickens. One had pulled off the sheets where I had been sick; another gently fed me some water.

By the time Ren finished healing my shoulder, I noticed that most of the initial responders to my scream had gone. There was only Death Cat, Ren, Kakashi and Inoichi left. When Kakashi and Inoichi had arrived, I had no idea.

"_How is she Ren-san?"_ Asked Inoichi.

"_Fine. Her shoulder will be sore for a while and she'll be woozy from blood loss, but she'll recover. Fully." _His voice was tinged with relief.

"_What happened exactly?"_ Kakashi asked.

Death Cat reported in a monotone voice, _"I was asked by Hokage-sama to check on her during my rounds. I did as ordered and discovered a strong genjutsu in place. I wouldn't have noticed it except that I was specifically told to check on her by the Hokage. I broke the genjutsu and found a foreign presence in the room. When I investigated, I saw that he was draining blood from her. There was no authorization for this that I knew of so I intervened." _

"_The Chuunin guards?"_ Inoichi asked.

"_Fell prey to the genjutsu. The level of genjutsu was much higher than something they could deal with." _Replied Death Cat.

"_So Hokage-sama decided to take action on your report…"_ Ren murmured to himself.

Kakashi turned to look at Ren with a questioning look.

"_Ren-san came to me with the request to ask Fei-san if she's been using her blood without telling him. Her blood levels were far lower than they should have been. He wanted to question her fully, but because of the language barrier, he came to ask for my assistance. I'd previously requested a talk with her…so we killed two birds with one stone." _Inoichi said.

"_Ask about what?"_ Death Cat asked.

"_Just a follow up on a few… things I saw in her memories about her world that the Hokage-sama also wanted investigated. I told Hokage-sama of the low blood levels in my report about her memories. He must have grown suspicious just like Ren-san and I." _

"_And we caught him in the act." _Kakashi muttered thoughtfully.

"_He was skilled and highly trained. A shinobi of high caliber, I let him get away of course."_ Death Cat said. There was a note of amusement in his voice.

"_Ah. Follow the rat to its den."_ Kakashi intoned with a smile.

Ren snorted. _"More like bird to its nest."_

The men shared a private joke among themselves. Though the chance to perhaps hear and piece together what had actually happened was useful, the speed at which they spoke was too difficult for me. Despite this, I followed their conversation as carefully as I could.

Death Cat suddenly stiffened. _"My clone has dispelled itself."_

"_Do we know who's responsible?"_ Inoichi asked.

Death Cat nodded once curtly. _"I must report to the Hokage."_ Death Cat turned his masked face to glance at me once, before looking at Inoichi. Without warning Death Cat and Inoichi disappeared.

As the conversation ended, Ren and Kakashi turned their attention towards me again. Ren gave my blood-encrusted clothes a frown. He quickly walked over to my wardrobe and started to riffle through the drawers. I really hoped he wouldn't open the drawer where I kept all of my underclothing.

Kakashi meanwhile settled down at the foot of my bed. When he reached out with one of his gloved hands to pat my head, I had to consciously force myself not to flinch away.

'Don't be ridiculous Fay. He's not going to stab you too. Relax; you don't want them to think you're a head-case now.'

Despite my best efforts, I think my eyes reflected my true feelings because Kakashi paused his hand and studied me thoughtfully with one dark eye. After a couple seconds of consideration, he gave me his characteristic smile and patted me on the head.

His hand was surprisingly comforting. The weight of his gloved hand resting on my head made me feel a little bit safer. If I closed my eyes, I could almost imagine that it was Papa's hand.

I sighed and leaned back onto the headboard. The adrenaline was fading and my eyes were quickly growing heavy. I was seconds away from drifting off when someone persistently shook me awake.

I blinked blearily at Ren, who had shaken me awake from my drowsy state. "_I'm sorry Fei-san. You can't sleep yet."_

I didn't know why he didn't want me to sleep. I didn't have a head injury that I could tell. Frowning at him unhappily, I rubbed my eyes and sat up completely. A glance at the clock told me that it was already 5:23 am, and the sun was beginning to rise.

I opened my mouth to ask him why I wasn't allowed to sleep, but before I could ask, a bundle of clothes were thrust into my face. Smiling at me cheerfully, the blue-haired medic pointed to the bathroom door.

Immediately, I turned to give Kakashi a look. He raised an eyebrow at my deadpan stare. "_Mah, mah. Don't worry. I'll wait outside."_ Sticking his hands into his pockets, he slouched his way out of my room.

I definitely felt rather woozy and sick the whole trip across my room to the bathroom, but it was manageable. Ren had to help me out of my bed, but from there, I was able to do everything on my own.

Once in the bathroom, I didn't waste any time in pulling off my ruined pajamas. Shivering from the morning chill, I glanced in the mirror. My hand involuntarily rose up to brush against my blood stained, but unmarked shoulder. There was no trace of the wound. However, when I prodded the area inquisitively, a sharp twinge made me flinch and quickly pull back.

'So not completely healed.'

Running one hand wearily down my face, I turned around and shuffled into the shower. As I stood in the searing hot water, cautiously rubbing the blood off myself, I finally let the panic take me.

Not wanting to show weakness in front of everyone, I had adopted a blank expression. I'd even fooled myself into believing that I was calm. In the privacy of the bathroom my face twisted into a grimace, but I didn't cry, as I knew that if I let the tears fall, they would not stop.

'Logically Fay. Think about this logically.' I thought to myself.

I knew that I needed to get back home, and the best idea…my only idea was to use my seal powers. If I were to return home, I would need to create a seal that would bring me through dimensions into my own world. Easier said then done.

The first problem was that because I hadn't been able to create a seal that could reverse or cancel other seals, I was a bit too scared to actually try out a transportation seal without a backup seal that would immediately cancel the transportation seal. What would happen if I did create a dimension travelling seal and ended up in the wrong world, somewhere without oxygen for example? Even if I were to create a seal that could reverse or cancel other seals, it would still be a huge risk. But you got to risk big, to win big.

I wanted to minimize the danger to myself and to others around me as much as possible. For this to occur, I needed to create a seal that would, without exception, cancel and/or reverse other seals, even seals that affected my own body. In other words, my amplifying seal had to go. *

Giving myself a goal to work towards was good for me. It calmed me down a bit because I had a purpose. Instead of just floating about without an anchor, I finally knew what I needed to do.

Finishing up in the bathroom, I slipped on the clothes Ren had pulled out of my closet and padded out into the room. Ren was waiting for me by my bed. He was flipping through some papers on his clipboard. Kakashi must have heard me finish because he entered the room as soon as I sat down on the bed.

"_Fei-san. Today please stay in your room. Do not go out, and stay with Kakashi-san or Daiki-san alright."_

I tilted my head to the side. "Who is Daiki?" I asked Ren.

Ren and Kakashi blinked at me. The two of them exchanged glances. "_This whole time and he still hasn't told her his code-name?"_ Ren muttered to himself.

"_Um. Daiki is…Daiki is masked man."_

I didn't know what _masked _meant, so I shook my head in confusion. Poor Ren looked to be confusing himself as well. Ren shot Kakashi a helpless look.

Sighing, Kakashi snapped his porn book shut and raised one hand up. He pawed the air in front of him a bit, and meowed.

"_Neko."_ Kakashi informed me. Ren's eyebrows were raised up so high they literally were hidden by his bangs.

I copied Kakashi and gave a little meow myself before repeating, "_Neko?"_ Kakashi nodded.

'So…neko means cat. Oh! Death Cat! Daiki must be Death Cat!' I almost slapped my forehead in exasperation at myself. I couldn't believe it took me that long to figure it out. It wasn't as if I knew a whole lot of people who I didn't know the name of.

"_Why didn't you just henge into him?"_ Ren asked Kakashi.

"_Hm."_ Kakashi hummed noncommittally.

Seeing that all the confusion was cleared up, Ren finally left the room, not without one last lecture about staying with Kakashi and Death Cat of course.

I sat in my bed for a total of 15 minutes before I couldn't wait any longer. I knew that Ren would highly disapprove, but I just didn't have the time to wait around. I had to start experimenting as soon as I could. The faster I could find a seal that could remove a seal affecting my body, the faster I could get started on my ticket home.

"Kakashi. Kunai please."

My request seemed to have surprised him because he looked up fully from his reading to look at me. We had a mini staring match before Kakashi finally reached into his pouch and pulled out one shiny kunai. Flipping it around, he handed it to me handle first.

I held the kunai in my hand nervously. I'd never drawn blood from myself purposefully. It had always been Ren who had done it, not to mention, he had always numbed my hand so I wouldn't feel a thing.

'What the hell.' I thought viciously before giving my palm a quick swipe. I'd been too scared. The first cut was too shallow. Gripping the handle firmly, I gave another determined slice. A hiss of pain escaped through my teeth as my hand stung sharply, and then throbbed. I pulled over my empty glass, which once held water, and quickly held it underneath my hand.

The blood trickled steadily into the glass. The cup wasn't even 1/8 full before Kakashi snatched my hand away. "_That's enough."_ He said as his own hands sputtered green. Rather clumsily, he held his green hands over my cut and slowly the wound knitted itself together. The healing was far slower and awkward compared to Ren's swift efficient healing, but it got the job done.

After thanking Kakashi, I took the glass of blood and hurried over to my desk. Taking a single drop and mixing it with some ink, I began my experimentations.

x

Around 10:30 am, Kakashi abruptly left with an "_I'll be back."_ It startled me that he would leave me alone so easily. Then I started to wonder, 'If Kakashi is leaving, that must mean Death Cat is nearby.'

I'd been experimenting with my seals for over 4 hours already, and the distraction was a welcome one. Clambering out from the desk, I circled the perimeter of the room, peering fruitlessly into all the potential hiding spots a full-grown ninja could be in.

"_What are you doing?"_ Death Cat's voice suddenly asked me from behind while I was checking inside one of my shoes. (No doubt, a ninja could fit into a shoe if he were determined enough) With a squeak, which thanks to my amplifying seal sounded more like a shriek, I spun around and threw the ink brush that I'd tucked behind my ear for safekeeping.

Death Cat caught it effortlessly.

'He did that on purpose.' I thought grumpily as I gave the man a sour look. Sighing, I returned back to my desk. It was no fun glaring at someone who wore a mask.

Cracking my back, I glanced down at my many, many seals, before flopping down unhappily onto the whole mess of papers. I didn't even care that some of my hair landed in the ink bowl.

So far, I'd been able to create a seal that could reverse and cancel both the water and heat seals, but nothing worked on my amplifying seal.

'Maybe I'm going about this the wrong way...maybe instead of writing a seal that cancels other seals, I should try and add to the seal already written.' This was an idea. The mini epiphany caused me to burst back up from my desk. A few papers stuck to my face, but I impatiently brushed them off.

I reached up towards my ear to pull out the brush, but met only air. 'Oh, right. I threw the brush.' I turned to look at Death Cat who was sitting on the windowsill twirling my brush.

"Daiki." I called out, holding my hands out expectantly. He completely ignored me. Maybe he was angry that I'd thrown the brush at him?

"Daiki." I called out again. He ignored me again.

"Neko-san." I called out. Now that got a response. Death Cat's whole body stiffened. His masked face, which had been gazing out the window previously, slowly turned around to face me. The emotionless cat mask staring at me so intently caused a shiver to go down my spine, but I remained strong.

"Neko-san." I said again while pointing at his hand that held the brush. I forced myself to keep a wide-eyed innocent look on my face.

Suddenly, Death Cat's form disappeared, and suddenly he was standing right in front of me. I almost fell out of my chair in surprise.

"_Who?"_ He growled at me. _"Who taught you neko?"_

"Um….Kakashi?"

Death Cat's chakra crackled with energy, before he calmed down. He gave an amused huff before saying to himself, _"just what I would expect from senpai." _

Tucking my brush behind my ear, he said to me firmly, _"no neko. Daiki," _before returning back to his seat at the window.

'Men. They're all weird. Especially the masked ones.' I thought while thinking about Anbu, Death Cat, Kakashi and the Crow-masked man. 'Yup… all mental, the whole lot of them.'

Turning my attention back to my seals, I carefully dipped my brush into the bloody ink and carefully laid out my palm where my amplifying seal was. The circle within a circle design of the seal had faded very little, no doubt because I'd used so much blood to create it.

I took a deep breath, and then firmly wrote 'REVERSE' over my amplifying seal while focusing chakra in my palm. To my amazement and exhilaration, the seal immediately blurred and suddenly I had a small puddle of blood and ink in my hand instead of the seal.

"YES!" I crowed. My yell of victory didn't burst my eardrums or shake the building. The amplifying seal had officially been broken.

Beaming widely, I hurried into the bathroom and washed my hands clean. Once all the ink and blood were gone, I saw to my relief and giddy happiness that my palm was unmarked.

Though I still couldn't have, lets say, a translation seal and an amplifying seal on me at the same time, I had been able to find a way for a reversal seal to work just long enough for it to remove the seal off my body. Perhaps one day after more experimentation, I could find a way to get around the 5th rule entirely. For now, I was content in knowing that I had a foolproof method of removing/reversing seals.

It was time to start working on a way back home. Grinning, I spun around to hurry out the door, when black spots danced across my vision. A soft little 'Oh!' of shock escaped from me before I fainted.

X

I was fricken pissed. If I were a cartoon character, I would literally be bright red and steam would be coming out of my ears.

'Five days, FIVE DAYS!' I thought bitterly. Five whole days after successfully reversing the amplifying seal and I still hadn't been able to start on a way back home.

All my brushes were taken away along with the bowls. Anything remotely sharp was taken along with my papers, and ink. Not only this, Kakashi and Death Cat reinforced Ren's ridiculous orders to keep me in bed and keep me from making seals.

I was bored to tears and impatient as hell. As such, I was very grumpy. I knew that Ren and the others were just looking out for me. I had hit my head rather hard when I'd fainted, but I couldn't help myself. Currently, dying of boredom seemed plausible.

In order to keep myself from taking out my frustrations on the others, and in order to alleviate the boredom as much as possible, I slept a ton. There wasn't much else to do anyways, but apparently, I wasn't even allowed to sleep in peace.

After listlessly picking at my nails, I had given up with a sigh, and decided to take another nap. It was about 5:00 in the evening, only an hour since I'd curled down to sleep, when a hand urgently shook me awake. I pushed down my natural instinct to snap at the person, and instead looked up with a 'what-do-you-want?' look.

"Kakashi?" I asked in surprise. He looked uncharacteristically serious. A movement behind Kakashi showed me the figure of a purple haired woman, clutching the area between her back neck and left shoulder in pain.

"_Fei. Sasuke needs your help_."

***Remember rule 5. Fay can't have more than one seal influencing her body at a time. Fay is trying to break this rule by creating a seal-removing seal that will essentially be an exception to this rule.**

**A/N: I am very sorry for the delay. I actually had this chapter done weeks ago, but due to personal reasons, I was unable to focus on Fanfiction. **

**Also, I was researching the times for the Chuunin exams and came across some discrepancies. Kakashi told team 7 that the deadline to turn in the applications was 4 PM. However, Sasuke later says that the 2****nd**** exam started at 2:30 PM. As the second exam started right after the first, the times don't match unless the first exam lasted almost a whole day. I'm just going to change the deadline from 4:00 PM to 11:00 AM. **

**As promised, an extra from Ren's POV. **

Ren grimaced as he regained consciousness. Spitting out the blood pooled in his mouth, he moaned in pain as he shifted his torso up. Both his arms were tied behind his back, so it was with some difficulties that he managed to sit up.

"F-ck." Ren swore as he shook his head roughly. His memory was hazy, he couldn't remember how he got where he was.

"I apologize for the rough treatment, but we couldn't have you noticing the blood loss."

Ren's head shot up to stare into the darkness where the voice had come from.

"Danzo-sama?" He whispered. Ren didn't understand what was going on. Why was he tied up in front of Danzo of all people? And blood loss? What was he…?

Then Ren remembered. Fei. He had been in charge of the little foreigner with the strange, strange chakra and the fragile constitution for quite a while now. From the moment they found her, to all the hours she had remained in a coma, to the happy days in the hospital after her interrogation was over. She had become his little sister, a little sister he was determined to protect.

Ren knew Fei's body and health very well. He was her doctor after all, he had healed her numerous times, and even the small, insignificant amount of blood disappearing from her had sparked his suspicions.

'Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.' Ren thought to himself. 'I should have told someone the moment I noticed something off, but like an idiot I tried to take care of it myself. You are a f-cking idiot Ren.'

"I took the initiative to place a silencing seal on you. You will not be able to divulge my secrets out. I'm sure you are thankful for this decision, as the alternative would be death."

Ren's teeth ground together in frustration as he let his chakra gingerly examine his mouth. 'Damn it, he was telling the truth. There really is a seal on my tongue.'

"Why?"

"Her blood is valuable."

"Have you managed to use it though?"

Danzo frowned. "It will only be a matter of time before we manage to recreate her sealing abilities with her blood."

Ren had to stiffle his smile at this admission. It appeared that Danzo had taken her blood, but it wasn't working without Fei's chakra. That was good for Fei, very good. Danzo had been repetitively taking blood from her because he couldn't take a lot at a time without drawing attention, but because his experiments kept failing, he needed to take blood repeatedly.

"Someone's going to notice. Someone other than me will notice and they'll tell Hokage-sama and then you'll –"

"No one will notice. You are the only exception; don't believe I don't know this Shibayama. As long as I keep you quiet, there will be nothing amiss. Now, keep your head down and continue as you were. It would be a shame for Konoha to lose one of its vital medics."

'If you won't make a mistake, I'll just have to create one for you.' Ren thought darkly.

X

Ren felt terrible about doing this, but it was necessary. The Chuunin guards and Fei were already out cold from the Root ANBU's formidable genjutsu. Ren had insisted on being present during the blood drawing to 'make sure they weren't screwing it up'. The ANBU definitely had some form of medical training as he was careful to drain blood into a small rubber bag first before depositing it into a vial, the better to keep the blood from becoming contaminated. Once he had his vial of blood, he left without a sound.

Ren was still for a few seconds, making sure the crow-masked man was really gone. Then, whispering a soft apology, he quickly started to drain blood from Fei into a small bag he had hidden on his person. Once he took enough for it to be glaringly obvious, he healed the wound, but left a bruise.

'Nothing amiss my ass.' Ren thought viciously.

As Ren was the one who drained her blood, bringing up the problem with Inoichi wouldn't be 'divulging Danzo's secrets,' not technically anyways, and that was all that mattered in order to bypass the seal on his tongue.

His plan had gone perfectly… well almost perfectly. Ren had almost had a heart attack when he'd seen the kunai in Fei's shoulder. He had desperately wanted to knock her out, but knew that for her own good she shouldn't sleep.

Powerful genjutsu, traumatic events and sleep afterwards had the negative effect of causing terrible nightmares and psychological damage in civilians. In the long run, it was better for her. Ren kept repeating this idea as he forced himself to ignore her whimpers and gasps of pain. He steeled himself when the pain caused her to be sick.

'Sorry, I'm sorry, sorry.' Ren had thought repeatedly as he healed her.

**A/N: End. Hope that cleared up a few questions people had. Once again, thank you to all my readers. I love you all. **

**Also, ****Generator X amazingly commissioned fanart for me. This was drawn by Sarbear0765. The link can be found on my profile page. Thanks again!**


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

_Snakes and Sand _

'Single Quotes' = Thoughts

_Italics = Untranslated Japanese _

x

'Sasuke? Help?' I thought. My face was in an unattractive look of bewilderment.

Nodding seriously, Kakashi gestured towards the purple haired woman.

"_This is Mitarashi Anko. Can you remove the bad seal from her?" _

When I turned my attention towards said woman, I immediately flinched and hurriedly looked away. First of all, there was an intense aura surrounding her. I'd felt it the minute I woke up, but by meeting her gaze, her twisting chakra seemed to sink all the way into my soul. Second, she had a very scary look on her face, a mix between pain, fury, hate and desperate hope.

I didn't understand how removing this woman's seal would help Sasuke, but I trusted Kakashi so I just nodded after composing myself. Sitting up fully in bed, I noticed that a bowl of ink and a brush was already set up for me. Kakashi had thoughtfully even laid out a kunai.

'Who would have thought that I would one day trust people who keep expecting me to cut myself?' I thought wryly.

Gripping the kunai, I swiped at my hand, flinching even before the blade touched my skin. I really couldn't get used to it.

Once done, I dipped in the brush and gestured for Anko to sit down so that I could see her neck more clearly.

The purple haired woman gingerly sat on my bed, but didn't remove her hand from where the seal supposedly was.

"Anko. Please?" I asked.

She turned towards me. Her expression seemed to be asking if I knew what I was doing. I could see fear and skepticism on her face mixed with delirious hope.

Truthfully, I wasn't sure if I knew what I was doing. I knew nothing about the seal, and didn't know how my removal seal would work. But…Sasuke needed help. How Anko was involved with all this I didn't know, but one thing was for sure, I had to try something. If not for Sasuke, but for the desperation I felt in Anko.

I wanted more than anything to fix her problems, to do good in this world. So, though I had my doubts, I gave her my best smile and nodded. She didn't look all that convinced, but nevertheless, she removed her hand.

The seal was very…unimpressive. It looked like three commas in a circular pattern. Lifting one finger, I gave the seal a gentle poke. Anko hissed angrily at me, which caused me to pull back hastily with a murmured apology.

Taking a shuddering breath, I raised the brush towards her neck. I hesitated.

'Should I write remove or reverse? I didn't write this seal so reverse might not work as it wouldn't be reversing my own actions, so remove? Damn it, I don't know what I'm doing.'

It was my last chance to back out, to listen to my own reason that this reckless experimentation was too dangerous. However, my overconfidence and curiosity won over my cautiousness.

'F-ck it.'

I lowered the brush and carefully wrote 'remove'. Once done, I checked over my work for any spelling errors, and then gently added chakra.

At first nothing happened. I then felt a movement underneath my palm. When I pulled back my hand, I saw the skin underneath the seal bulge and writher. In horrified fascination, I watched, too surprised to react.

Everything after that happened too rapidly for me to process. One minute, I was staring at the reacting seal, the next, I heard a terribly pained scream from Anko, and then I was slammed on to the ground, unable to breath.

Once my brain caught up with me, I frantically took stock of the situation.

Some sort of white coil had burst from Anko's seal and was currently wrapped around my neck choking me.

I was flat on my back on the ground; Death Cat was half on top of me, practically crushing me with his weight. His right hand was shoved between the white coil and my neck. I could see his muscles bulging as he strained to keep the coil from tightening on my neck further. His hand was the only thing keeping the coil from snapping my neck like a twig.

Kakashi raised a kunai and slammed it down on the coil, trying to sever it. The coil, like rubber absorbed the blow with ease. Kakashi then started to saw at the coil, his kunai sparking with white lightening, but ceased as Anko screamed, and Death Cat grunted in pain, as we were all shocked. I would have screamed as well if I could, but I didn't have enough oxygen.

Kakashi looked from me to the white coil.

"_Her body won't be able to survive chidori." _ Death Cat said through gritted teeth.

"_Can you pull it off?" _Asked Kakashi.

"_Not without pulling her head off with it."_

"_How long can you hold it?"_

To my shock, wooden vines appeared from Death Cat's hand, wrapping around the white coil, preventing my death.

"_Long enough."_

Kakashi quickly scooped up my brush and ink bowl and hurried over to my side.

"_Fei. Seal it!"_

'Seal it? Oh, literally seal it away.'

I grabbed the brush, and quickly wrote, 'seal' on to the coil, and added my chakra, not having much time to really think about what I was doing. All I could think about was getting oxygen; I was quickly running out of air to breath.

Immediately, the coil loosened from my neck, and retreated. As it sank back into Anko's neck, I saw to my horror that it hadn't been a coil, but actually a snake. Shuddering in disgust I stared, transfixed as its yellow eyes watched me with chilling intelligence. Finally, it was gone.

Death Cat's wood...I mean magic tree branches, also retreated as he got up off me. I took his offered hand, and he pulled me up to my feet with ease. I uneasily rubbed my bruised neck and took deep slow breathes to slow down my racing heart.

'Oh my God. Anko!' I thought frantically as I saw the woman slumped silently on the ground. Kakashi was already at her side. Running over, I looked down at the seal. A box made of chains now surrounded the three commas.

"Is she okay?" I asked.

Kakashi shook his head. "_She's alive. But I'm not sure if she's okay." _

Straightening up, he disappeared in a swirl of leaves. Used to this, I didn't even blink. He was probably getting Ren.

I leaned down, and gently felt her pulse. Her heartbeat was rapid and shallow, her skin felt clammy, and I could feel slight tremors throughout her body.

I bit my lip and blinked the tears back.

'This is all my fault.'

x

In five days, my seal had faded away, but luckily, the Hokage knew a seal of his own that kept the horrible snake locked up.

Five days had passed, but Anko had failed to wake up. She was still in a coma. Each day she was in a coma made me feel like I'd aged 10 years. I hadn't left her bedside. I barely ate. I barely slept. I just sat there with her, mentally begging her forgiveness, begging her to wake up.

Kakashi had disappeared. According to Ren, he and Sasuke had left to train. Whether that was true, I wasn't sure. They seemed to have disappeared off the face of this planet. I tried pestering Ren for more information, but he didn't seem to know.

Sakura and Naruto had come by on the second day. According to them, Sasuke too had the evil seal on his neck. My mind literally blanked out and then I felt a tremor of horror go through me. Poor Anko had been used as a guinea pig, and poor Sasuke was infected by a demon snake too. It was bad news after bad news.

Naruto and Sakura, for my sake tried not to look worried, but it was there, there was definitely a look of apprehension on their faces. Both of them had experienced something horrible in the test, I could feel it. Sakura especially felt different. Her hair was cut short, and there was now an aura of seriousness about her that I'd never felt before.

Apparently all three had made it to the third exam. Though I congratulated them, all I wanted to do was tell them, beg them, not to continue. The first two exams had managed to change the children that I knew and loved into weary, tired soldiers. I didn't even want to imagine what the third exam could do to them.

Currently, of the three preteens and Kakashi, I only saw Sakura on a regular basis. Naruto was apparently training under some sort of pervert…At first I thought he meant Kakashi as he'd said 'Ero-sennin' had white hair, but apparently not. Sakura meanwhile was training under Ren on medical jutsu, and thanks to her tenacious efforts, managed to bully a little bit of training from Death Cat.

"_Fei onee-san…it's been five days. Please rest already!"_ Begged Sakura.

I looked up towards the pink-haired girl and saw that she was seriously worried about me. Ren stood behind her, an unhappy frown on his face as well.

'What the hell are you doing Fay?' I asked myself. 'Look around you, you're causing problems for everyone.' I still didn't feel motivated enough to get up.

"_Anko-san isn't going to wake up or get better with you hovering over her all day Fei. Get some fresh air, take a nap, eat something substantial. Fei, please."_

Sakura came over to my side, and took my hand. With a gentle tug, she got me to my feet.

"_I have a friend named Lee here in the hospital. Let's go visit him, okay?"_

Sighing in defeat, I let myself be led away.

On shaky legs, I shuffled down the hall to wherever Sakura was leading me. Once we reached the room, Sakura rapped gently twice, and carefully pushed the door open. To our surprise, the room was empty.

Eyes wide in shock, Sakura looked frantically around the room.

"Lee-san? Lee-san?" She called out.

The two of us hurried out the door. We turned left and were making our way down the hall when we heard the sound of raised voices behind us. As quickly as my tired body would allow, we made our way back towards the voices.

As we turned the corner into the lighted area of the courtyard, I was shocked to see a young, heavily injured boy doing one-armed pushups. A nurse was at his side, desperately trying to convince him to stop.

'What the f-ck is he thinking!' Running over, I crouched down and grabbed the boy's head between my hands.

"Stop!" I half yelled at him.

Taken aback, the boy froze and stared at me with shocked eyes.

In French, I started to rant at him wildly. "What the hell are you thinking? Look at you, you should be lying in a bed, not doing push ups! Who do you think you are? Superman? Who do you think you all are, going around fighting, and killing and fighting and dying? You're children! CHILDREN! You should be in school, not throwing weapons and killing, and fighting and GETTING HURT!"

Panting with exertion from my furious outburst, I was red in the face and almost in tears.

Lee was still frozen in his push up form. Slowly, he lowered himself and sat up. The whole time he kept his gaze fixed on me.

"Sorry." I whispered shamefaced in Japanese.

"_No. It is I who should apologize. I did not realize that I was worrying people so. To think my selfish actions have caused such a lovely, youthful maiden pain. Forgive me."_

'Why is _he_ apologizing? I'm the one who went all crazy on him.'

Sakura, who had been watching from a distance the whole time, finally snapped her mouth shut, which had fallen open during my rant, and gingerly made her way over.

"_Um…should the three of us get lunch?"_

x

"What! Naruto's hurt? Hospital?" I gasped in broken Japanese while staring at Ren. My brush and scroll, which I had been using to work on new seals, almost fell off my lap. As usual, I was sitting at Anko's bedside, but now, I was taking breaks, eating, and sleeping. After my rant at Lee, I realized that it wasn't fair of me to reprimand him for worrying others, and for not taking care of himself when I was doing the exact same thing as him.

Today was the day before the third exams would take place. I couldn't believe Naruto, who had seemed to be able to bounce back from everything, was hospitalized right before exam day.

Ren gave me a nod of confirmation. _"He's okay though. He'll be up and ready for the exam tomorrow." _

I had to see Naruto with my own eyes. Setting down my scroll and bowl of ink at Anko's bedside table, and tucking the brush behind my ear, I brushed nonexistent dust off my favorite burgundy shirt before making my way over to the room Ren had told me Naruto was staying.

On my way there, I saw to my surprise a visitor in Lee's room. After my rant and lunch with Lee three weeks ago, I had gotten pretty close to him. He was determined to get better and become a great shinobi. Seeing the extent of his injuries, I wasn't sure how he would manage it, but I didn't discourage him.

Gai, Lee's teacher, looked very similar to the boy. When I had asked the two if they were father and son, to my utter bewilderment, they had burst into happy tears and hugged me.

As I peered into the room curiously, I saw to my shock that it was the very scary…very, very, very, very scary, red haired foreigner. Gaara, I believe.

'What's he doing in there?' I wondered. I could see that Lee was fast asleep on his bed.

"Excuse me? Why you here?" I asked in Japanese.

I didn't know what hit me. Out of nowhere, sand suddenly wrapped around my throat and bodily lifted me up into the air. Before I could even give a choked scream, the sand quickly dissipated as Naruto slammed a kick at Gaara.

I fell into a heap on the ground. 'Why the hell does everyone in this world keep choking me?'

"_Hey! What are you doing to fuzzy-eyebrows and Fei no nee-chan_?" Naruto asked in his usual rambunctious way.

"_Naruto_…" The pineapple haired boy next to him warned, as he shot Gaara a nervous look.

Before Naruto could reply, Gaara answered in a chilling, matter of fact voice. "_I was going to kill him."_

He then started on a monologue, but I had watched enough movies to know that it was much more practical to attack the villain during their monologue than to actually listen to them.

In response, I flicked a wad of paper at him.

Recently, I had improved my water seal. I found that by changing the seal to take water molecules in the air and condense into liquid, I could get a lot more water, with less blood and chakra. Before, I had made the mistake of giving the directions to take hydrogen and oxygen gas in the atmosphere to make water. It was much easier and efficient to take the already formed water molecules in the air.

As expected, Gaara's sand snapped around the wad of paper, and at that instant, a huge amount of water exploded from the seal. Gaara's sand had instinctively wrapped around the water in efforts to contain it, but there was too much. Within seconds, Gaara's sand was soaked. Clumps of it fell to the ground in wet flops, but the majority of the sand hung ominously in the air. Darker and heavy from the water, but undeterred.

Gaara's eyes snapped towards me murderously. I gulped fearfully at his deadly glower. His sand shot towards me, but at a much slower rate. Naruto was easily able to pull me away.

I knew that Death Cat was nearby, probably watching. Seeing as he hadn't stepped in yet, I got the feeling he was letting things play out for now. 'Probably collecting intelligence or some sort of ninja crap like that.'

Gaara's sand shot towards us again, but he was suddenly distracted by an attack from behind him. Lee had woken up!

Sand wrapped around Lee's arm, which the boy had used to throw a punch. I couldn't see Lee be hurt any more. I just couldn't. "Daiki!" I screamed.

There was a blur of color, and suddenly, Lee was deposited at my side. "You're late!" I yelled at him. "You not Kakashi!"

Death Cat uncharacteristically stumbled at that remark, and sighed audibly. At that moment, the door slid open, and Gai stepped in. There was a heavy frown, and glint of anger in his expression. It was completely incongruous with his usual attitude. With a select few words, he managed to convince Gaara to leave.

As the sand shinobi left the room, his gaze slid towards me. I shivered as I felt the promise of death. Wetting my lips nervously, I fidgeted nervously with my hands.

"_Nee-chan._" Naruto said as he grabbed my hands, stopping me from further tearing at the skin.

"Ah. Thanks Naruto." I murmured as I changed my target to my hair. As I started to nervously tug at my locks, Naruto sighed in defeat.

"_So…who are you_?"

I blinked and looked towards the pineapple haired boy who had spoken.

"_Oh yeah. Hey Shikamaru, this is Fei no onee-chan. She's from Shiato. We had a mission before the exams where we had to protect her, believe it!"_

"_Protect? From what? And where the heck is Shiato?"_

"_PERVERTS! You won't believe how many there are lurking around!" _Naruto shifted his gaze around the room suspiciously._ "Heck, we had to beat up a couple of Chuunin one time because they were being perverts!" _

"_Troublesome. You do realize that your sensei reads porn in broad daylight right?" _

"_Yeah, but he's into the big and curvy type I think. Onee-chan is..."_ Naruto looked at me. I narrowed my eyes. Something smelled fishy about their conversation.

"_Stop! Stop this unyouthful talk immediately!" _Lee and Gai interrupted.

Death Cat just listened with one head cocked to the side curiously.

"_Onee-chan is…the loli type!"_

Death Cat slammed a fist onto the blond's head, Lee and Gai screamed in horror as one, and Shikamaru groaned and face palmed.

"_Troublesome."_

"_Owwwwww!"_

"_UNYOUTHFUL!"_

Shaking my head, I turned around and left the room.

x

**A/N: Thanks for reading everyone! Haha, finally left the chapter on a non-cliffhanger. **

**First of all, thank you once again to Generator X****for another piece of art that he commissioned. It's really amazing and you guys should check it out. I posted a link on my profile. **

**Second, I'm sure by now you are probably all 100 percent sure who Death Cat is. Most of you probably knew a long while back, but this time, the hint is pretty obvious. **

**Third, I decided to get a Beta for this story to fix up a few problems here and there as English isn't my first language. Kjrs has graciously agreed to Beta this story. **

**Fourth, to my confused Guest reader: No, Ren is not evil. I will give you a detailed clarification if needed, just PM me! **

**Finally (sorry for the long A/N) FirelordSadistic: I always reply to my reviews, but I can't reply to guest reviews. Your review was so nice that I just had to thank you!**


End file.
